UC-NRLF 


B    3    5M7    7M7 


THE    BRONTES 

FACT  AND   FICTION 


THE    BRONTES 

FACT    AND    FICTION 

jBy  ANGUS  M.  MacKAY,  B.A.^ 

(/ 


LONDON:  SERVICE  ^  PATON 
5  HENRIETTA  STREET     ^     1897 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  cr*  Co 
At  the  Ballantyne  Press 


PREFACE 

^T^HE  nucleus  of  the  longer  essay  in 
*  this  little  volume  is  an  article  in 
the  Westminster  Review  of  October  1895, 
which  is  now  out  of  print.  I  enlarge  it 
and  republish  it  at  the  solicitation  of  some 
of  those  who  read  it  in  its  original  form, 
and  with  the  desire  to  set  at  rest  a  vexed 
question  of  Bronte  bibliography.  An 
attempt  to  apply  the  methods  of  the 
''higher  criticism"  to  a  modern  book  is 
novel  and  may  prove  not  uninteresting. 

Let  me  hasten  to  say  that   I  make  no 
charge  of  dishonesty  against  Dr.  William 

Wright.     I  concern  myself  with  the  credi- 

vii 

7599 1 4 


Preface 

billty  of  the  book,  not  with  the  motives  or 
character  of  its  author.  In  the  seven- 
teenth century,  long  before  the  key  to 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics  was  discovered, 
Kircher  professed  to  give  translations  of 
Egyptian  stelae  ;  he  was  enthusiastic,  he 
was  honest,  he  had  spent  years  in  studying 
the  subject,  nothing  could  be  laid  to  his 
charge  except,  perhaps,  a  little  unconscious 
self-deception — and  yet  his  translations 
bore  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  the 
true  meaning  of  the  originals.  So  Dr. 
Wright  has,  I  am  informed,  been  diligent 
in  inquiry,  and  I  do  not  accuse  him  of  bad 
faith  ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  his  volume 
is  unreliable  almost  from  cover  to  cover. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  thought  that  the 
matter  is  here  dealt  with  in  too  great 
detail.     It  may  be  asked.  Why  break  a  fly 

viii 


Preface 

upon  the  wheel  ?  But  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Dr.  Wright's  book  has  passed 
through  several  editions,  It  was  received 
with  a  chorus  of  approval  by  the  critics, 
and  Its  narratives  have  been  widely  ac- 
cepted as  history  :  only  a  very  thorough 
exposure  of  Its  unreliability  can  extirpate 
the  errors  which  It  has  sown  broadcast. 
But  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  facts  set 
forth  In  the  following  pages  will  carry  com- 
plete conviction  with  them,  and  that  those 
who  possess  The  Brontes  in  Ireland  will 
henceforth  merely  treasure  it  for  what  it 
is — one  of  the  curiosities  of  nineteenth- 
century  literature. 

The  other  essay  In  this  little  book — 
which  Is  here  printed  first — deals  mainly 
with  the  secret  tragedy  In  Charlotte 
Bronte's    life    which    had    so    remarkable 

ix 


Preface 

an  effect  in  quickening  and  directing 
her  genius.  Circumstances  have  made  it 
necessary  to  treat  the  matter  now  with 
perfect  frankness,  but  I  trust  I  have 
said  nothing  which  is  not  compatible  with 
entire  reverence  for  one  of  the  noblest 
and  most  gifted  of  women. 

ANGUS  M.  MacKAY. 

Aberdeen,  April  1897. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  FRESH   LIGHT  ON   BRONTE  BIOGRAPHY  15 

THE  BRONTE  FAMILY  GROUP     .     .     .     .  l6 

THE  RELIGIOUS  VIEWS  OF  THE  NOVELISTS  26 

CHARLOTTE  BRONTE'S  SECRET   ....  32 

II.  A  CROP  OF  BRONTE  MYTHS         ...  85 

THE  GENEALOGICAL  CHART  .  .  .  .  90 
THE      ALLEGED      ORIGINALS      OF       "  WUTHERING 

HEIGHTS  " 97 

HUGH    II.    (the    paragon) I26 

THE        IRISH        UNCLES       AND       AUNTS       OF       THE 

NOVELISTS                      135 

THE  REVIEWER  AND  THE  AVENGER  .  .  .  I46 
THE    ASSERTED    IRISH     ORIGIN     OF    THE    BRONTE 

NOVELS 161 

PRUNTY  V.    BRONTE 166 

SOURCES  OF  ERROR 172 

"THE  BRONTES  IN  IRELAND"  AND  THE  CRITICS  I79 


FRESH  LIGHT  ON  BRONTE 
BIOGRAPHY 


J  J      J 

>  ' » '  •> 


FRESH  LIGHT  ON  BRONTE 
BIOGRAPHY 

THE  recent  publication  of  Mr.  Shorter's 
admirable  work,  Charlotte  Bronte  and 
her  Circle,  has  quickened  the  interest  which 
is  everywhere  felt  in  Bronte  biography. 
Mr.  Shorter  has  very  skilfully  grouped  the 
copious  material  placed  at  his  disposal, 
and  we  are  now  in  possession  of  all  the 
facts  which  are  ever  likely  to  be  known 
concerning  the  wonderful  Haworth  family. 
It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
mystery  and  glamour  are  now  dispelled,  and 
that  henceforth  we  are  to  see  Charlotte, 
Emily  and  Anne  only  in  the  light  of  com- 
mon day.  The  doings  and  sufferings  of 
the  shy,  depressed,  awkward  girls  at  the  bare 


The  Brontes 

parsonage  or  in  the  fashionable  Pensionnat 
will  continue  to  have  a  strange  attraction 
for  all  students  of  literary  genius.  It  still 
remains  true  that  never  before  was  a  drama 
so  fascinating  constructed  out  of  such 
homely  material  or  acted  upon  so  narrow 
a  stage,  but  about  the  characters  of  the 
actors  there  is  henceforth  little  room  for 
dubiety.  It  may  be  well  to  summarise  the 
impressions  which  result  from  a  study  of 
the  abundant  material  now  at  our  dis- 
posal. 

The  Bronte  Family  Group. 

The  character  of  the  Rev.  Patrick 
Bronte,  the  father  of  the  novelist,  has 
been  alternately  blackened  and  white- 
washed since  Mrs.  Gaskell's  Life  appeared, 
but  these  accretions  are  now  removed,  and 
the  original  figure  stands  revealed.  Indeed 
one  cannot   but  wonder  at   the  skill  with 

which  Mrs.  Gaskell,  w^ithout  any  violation 

j6 


Fact  and  Fiction 

of  good  taste,  was  able  to  suggest  the 
blemishes  no  less  than  the  excellences  of 
old  Mr.  Bronte,  writing  as  she  did  during 
his  lifetime  and  at  his  request.  The  Vicar 
of  Haworth  was  eccentric,  self-willed,  some- 
what vain  ;  he  was  grandiose  in  speech  and 
tyrannous  in  bearing  when  his  will  was 
crossed.  Once  at  least,  as  we  are  now 
permitted  to  know,  he  took  to  excessive 
whisky-drinking.  Mr.  Shorter  amiably 
tries  to  soften  these  unpleasant  traits,  but 
the  facts  are  too  strong  for  him.  When 
the  Rev.  A.  B.  Nicholls  had  the  pre- 
sumption to  propose  to  Charlotte  Bronte 
it  is  thus  the  daughter  describes  the  effect 
of  the  news  upon  her  father : 

"  Papa  worked  himself  into  a  state  not 
to  be  trifled  with  :  the  veins  on  his  temples 
started  up  like  whipcord  and  his  eyes 
became  suddenly  bloodshot.  I  made  haste 
to  promise  that  Mr.  Nicholls  should  on  the 
morrow  have  a  distinct  refusal." 

Alluding  to   this   episode,  Mr.   Shorter 

17  B 


The  Brontes 

writes  :  "  For  once,  and  for  the  only  time 
in  his  life  there  is  reason  to  believe,  his 
passions  were  thoroughly  aroused."  But 
this  will  not  do.  Charlotte's  words  in 
writing  to  Miss  Nussey  are :  ''  I  only  wish 
you  were  here  to  see  papa  in  his  present 
mood :  you  would  know  something  of  him  ;  " 
and  she  goes  on  to  speak  of  his  relentless 
cruelty  to  Mr.  Nicholls.  Her  language  is 
capable  of  but  one  construction — the  out- 
burst was  not  exceptional,  it  was  charac- 
teristic. The  story  that  in  a  gust  of 
passion  he  cut  to  pieces  his  wife's  silk 
gown  has  been  contradicted ;  but  if  it  is 
not  true  we  must  at  least  think  it  well 
invented.  And  yet,  while  old  Mr.  Bronte 
was  far  from  immaculate,  there  is  another 
side  of  his  character  which  inspires  respect. 
He  was  the  reverse  of  commonplace,  was 
proud  in  the  nobler  sense  of  the  word,  pos- 
sessed an  indomitable  will,  and  had  abilities 
decidedly  above  the  average.  The  fact 
that  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte,  A.B.,  began 

i8 


Fact  and  Fiction 

life  as  Patrick  Prunty,  the  bare-footed 
peasant,  and  owed  his  success  entirely  to 
his  own  exertions,  speaks  for  itself.  Some 
of  his  daughter's  biographers,  indeed,  de- 
scribe him  as  meanly  ignoring  his  Irish 
relations.  This  we  now  know  is  quite 
untrue.  He  was  in  correspondence  with 
his  Irish  relatives  till  his  death  ;  he  visited 
them  and  they  him  ;  he  mentioned  them  in 
his  will ;  and,  straitened  as  were  his  own 
circumstances,  he  never  failed  to  contribute 
most  generously  to  his  mother's  support  so 
long  as  she  lived.  When  every  fault  has 
been  admitted,  we  can  all  give  in  our 
adhesion  to  Mr.  Shorter's  verdict  on  him 
as  *'  a  thoroughly  upright  and  honourable 
man,  who  came  manfully  through  a  some- 
what severe  life-battle." 

Patrick  Branwell  Bronte  does  not  come 
out  so  well  under  the  fiercer  light  which 
now  beats  upon  the  family  group.  Unless 
want   of  balance  is   to  be   considered    as 

19 


The  Brontes 

synonymous  with  genius,  it  is  impossible 
to  credit  him  with  unusual  mental  talents. 
With  his  letters  before  us  we  cannot  but 
perceive  that  he  was  intellectually  common- 
place. As  to  his  moral  character,  the  less 
said  the  better.  A  small  incident  may 
sometimes  serve  as  an  index  to  wide 
tracts  of  a  man's  disposition  ;  and  any 
one  who  reads  the  mean  and  sly  letter  to 
Hartley  Coleridge  which  appears  on  p.  126 
of  Mr.  Shorter's  book  will  think  Branwell 
capable  of  the  worst  which  has  been  im- 
puted to  him. 

As  for  the  gentle  Anne,  she  remains — 
well,  just  the  gentle  Anne — pious,  patient 
and  trustful.  Her  talent  was  of  that 
evangelical,  pietistic  type  which  never 
lacks  a  certain  gracefulness  and  never 
rises  above  a  certain  intellectual  level. 
Had  she  lived  in  our  day  her  novels 
would  have  attracted  little  attention,  and 

her  poetry  would  hardly  have  found  ad- 

20 


Fact  and  Fiction 

mission  into  any  first-class  magazine.  It 
remains  clear  as  ever  that  her  immortality- 
is  due  to  her  sisters.  Upon  those  bright 
twin-stars  many  telescopes  are  turned,  and 
then  there  swims  into  the  beholder's  view 
this  third,  mild-shining  star  of  the  tenth 
magnitude,  which  otherwise  would  have 
remained  invisible.  It  follows  that  Anne 
will  always  have  a  place  assigned  her  in 
the  chart  of  the  literary  heavens.  Nothing, 
however,  is  ever  likely  to  occur  either  to 
heighten  our  estimate  of  her  literary  ability 
or  to  lessen  the  affection  which  her  character 
inspires. 

The  author  of  Wtithering  Heights  still 
remains,  what  she  has  ever  been,  the 
sphynx  of  literature.  Mr.  Shorter  prints 
a  curious  document,  written  by  Emily  in 
her  twenty-seventh  year,  which  shows  how 
the  child-spirit  survived  in  her,  as  it  is  apt 
to  do  in  men  and  women  of  genius,  but  it 
sheds    no    farther  light  upon    its    writer's 

21 


The  Brontes 

personality.  The  mystery  enshrouding  her 
is,  indeed,  partially  accounted  for  when  we 
learn  how  almost  absolutely  impenetrable 
was  the  reserve  in  which  this  lonely  soul 
clothed  herself — a  reserve  so  great  that  it 
seems  positively  to  have  revolted  some  of 
Charlotte's  Brussels  friends.  But  to  account 
for  the  presence  of  a  mystery  is  not  to  ex- 
plain the  mystery  itself,  and  we  know  now 
more  clearly  than  ever  that  Emily  was  one 
of  those  self-centred  natures  which  ''  will 
not  abide  our  question."  As  her  genius 
was  "  rare  "  in  the  felicitous  sense  in  which 
that  word  is  applied  to  Ben  Jonson  in  the 
famous  epitaph,  so  her  personality  was 
unique.  It  might  be  said  of  her,  almost 
more  truly  than  of  Milton  : 

♦'Her  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart." 

Her  genius  may  be  compared  to  a  mountain 
peak,  whose  bold  contour  compels  attention 
yet  forbids  approach  ;  bare,  steep,  affording 
no  foothold  to  the  explorer,  and  shrouding 

22 


Fact  and  Fiction 

its  summit  in  clouds  which  shift  but  do  not 
lift ;  a  Matterhorn  which  no  Whymper 
has  yet  appeared  to  scale.  To  this  proud 
isolation  of  spirit  is  partly  due  the  strong 
originality  which  places  her  in  a  rank  above 
her  sister,  and  explains  why  those  who  have 
appreciated  her — from  Sydney  Dobell  to 
Mr.  Swinburne — have  been  fit,  if  few. 

But  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  great 
bulk  of  the  new  material  in  Mr.  Shorter's 
book  relates  to  Charlotte.  We  can  hardly 
say  that  it  alters  the  figure  now  so  familiar 
to  us,  but  it  brings  it  into  clearer  light,  and 
confirms  our  former  estimate  of  the  great 
novelist's  genius  and  character.  We  now 
know  that  Lockhart,  the  editor  of  the 
Quarterly,  some  months  before  the  criticism 
appeared  in  his  review  which  gave  Charlotte 
such  pain,  wrote  thus  of  the  author  oijane 
Eyre : 

"  I  think  her  far  the  cleverest  that  has     V 
written  since  Austen  and  Edge  worth  were 

23 


The  Brontes 

in  their  prime,  worth  fifty  Trollopes  and 
Martineaus  rolled  into  one  counterpane, 
with  fifty  Dickenses  and  Bulwers  to  keep 
them  company." 

It  is  a  surprising  estimate  considering 
the  time  and  the  man,  but  when  truer 
canons  of  criticism  prevail,  and  our  guides 
in  literature  learn  to  discriminate  between 
the  natural  and  the  artificial,  between  crea- 
tion and  caricature — which  at  best  is  only 
humorous  imitation — it  will  not  be  found 
one  whit  too  high.  Certainly  the  letters 
of  Charlotte  Bronte,  now  made  public  for 
the  first  time,  increase  our  respect  for  her 
intellectual  ability  ;  nor  do  they  lower  our 
previous  admiration  for  her  character ; 
more  than  ever  are  we  ready  to  unite 
with  Thackeray  in  doing  homage  to  *'  the 
burning  love  of  truth,  the  bravery,  the 
simplicity,  the  indignation  at  wrong,  the 
eager  sympathy,  the  pious  love  and  rever- 
ence, the  passionate  honour,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  woman."     The  publication   of  Mr. 

24 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Shorter's  work  will  certainly  tend  to  the 
firmer  establishment  of  Charlotte  Bronte's 
fame. 

With  the  inferences  which  the  author 
draws  from  his  copious  material,  however, 
it  is  not  always  possible  to  agree.  Some- 
times, indeed,  these  appear  directly  con- 
trary to  the  evidence  on  which  they  are 
ostensibly  based.  While  the  instances  of 
this  are  not  numerous  enough  to  weaken 
our  gratitude  to  Mr.  Shorter  they  are 
important  enough  to  call  for  instant  chal- 
lenge, and  I  purpose  now  to  discuss  two 
of  the  subjects  on  which  he  has,  as  I  think, 
arrived  at  wrong  conclusions.  One  of 
the  questions  thus  raised  I  shall  touch 
with  extreme  reluctance — I  allude  to  the 
relations  between  M.  Heger  and  his  gifted 
pupil ;  but  I  feel  that  it  would  be  hurtful 
to  Charlotte's  reputation  to  deal  with  it  any 
longer  only  by  hint  and  innuendo.  The 
other  question,  which  I   shall  treat  first,  is 

25 


The  Brontes 

that  of  the  reHgious  opinions  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,  which  need  not  detain  us  long. 


The  Religious  Views  of  the 
Novelists. 

The  theological  position  of  a  person  of 
genius  is  always  a  matter  of  great  interest, 
as  that  is,  naturally,  an  index  to  much  else. 
Mr.  Shorter  speaks  of  Charlotte's  ultra- 
Protestant  education,  of  her  "inheritance 
of  intolerance,"  of  her  sharing  the  views  of 
her  sister  Anne,  and  he  leaves  us  with  the 
impression  that  she  was  a  strict  Tory 
touched  with  Orangeism.  As  to  her  poli- 
tical views  I  shall  not  here  concern  myself 
beyond  saying  that  I  think  Mr.  Shorter 
confuses  the  orirl's  childlike  enthusiasm  for 
the  ''  Great  Duke  "  with  the  opinions  of 
the  mature  woman.  But  when  we  are 
bidden  to  judge  of  the  religion  of  the 
daughters    from     the     opinions    of    their 

26 


Fact  and  Fiction 

father,    it    is    needful    to   remember   that 

persons   of    strong    intellect    are    apt    to 

vindicate  their  right  to  freedom  of  thought 

by  adopting  some  other  opinions  than  those 

offered  by  their  environment, — Maurice  be- 

ofan  life  as  a  Unitarian,  and  Newman  as 

an  Evangelical.      In  any  case  there  is  no 

room  for  doubt   as   to   the  views   of  the 

Bronte  sisters.     Anne  kept  most  nearly  to 

the  doctrine  they  had  all  been  taught,  but 

even  she  departed  from  it  in  one  particular, 

for  in  her  poem,  ''  A  Word  to  the  '  Elect '," 

she  expresses  a  disbelief  in  the  dogma  of 

eternal   punishment.       Emily's    views   are 

not  easily  defined.     The  only  fact  that  has 

come  down  to  us    is   that   she   expressed 

approval  of  a  friend  who  had  refused  to 

state   what   her   religious    opinions    were. 

Her  writings  enable  us  to   be   certain    of 

only  one  thing — that  she  was  far  removed 

from  orthodoxy,  and  that  what  faith  she 

retained  she  held,  not  with  the  help  of,  but 

in  spite  of,  religious  formulae. 

27 


The  Brontes 

"  Vain  are  the  thousand  creeds 
That  move  men's  hearts  .... 
To  waken  doubt  in  one 
Holding  so  fast  by  Thine  infinity." 

But  about  Charlotte's  position  after  her 
opinions  had  matured  there  surely  can 
be  no  dispute — it  was  midway  between 
those  of  her  two  sisters.  Her  views  were 
not  stereotyped,  nor  were  they  utterly 
formless.  Her  outspoken  condemnation 
of  some  of  the  fruits  of  Roman  Catholi- 
cism, as  witnessed  in  the  Pensionnat  at 
Brussels,  has  been  set  down  to  her  sup- 
posed Orange  sympathies  ;  but  it  was  quite 
compatible  with  detachment  of  mind  :  the 
ofirl  who  herself  took  refuo^e  in  the  Con- 
fessional  in  her  loneliness  and  distress,  and 
who  made  a  devoted  Roman  Catholic  the 
hero  of  her  greatest  work,  was  not  a  person 
blinded  by  prejudices.  Her  attitude  to- 
wards religious  questions  was  never  other 
than  tolerant,  but  she  was  always  out- 
spoken where  she  saw,  or  thought  she  saw, 

28 


Fact  and  Fiction 

what  was  blameworthy.  She  loved  the 
Church  of  England,  but  she  knew  its 
faults  and  denounced  them  :  ''  God  pre- 
serve it!  God  also  reform  it,"  she  says  in 
Shirley.  Her  verdict  on  its  inferior  clergy 
is  well  known  :  "  They  seem  to  me  a  self- 
seeking,  vain,  empty  race."  She  hated 
with  all  her  heart  that  narrow  ecclesias- 
ticism  which  seems  to  have  been  common 
in  her  day  as  it  is  in  ours.  She  was  gener- 
ally painfully  shy  in  company,  but  on  one 
occasion,  when  the  three  famous  curates 
''began  glorifying  themselves  and  abusing 
the  Dissenters,"  she  surprised  herself  and 
the  company  by  some  sharp  sentences 
which  struck  all  dumb.  In  her  corre- 
spondence with  W.  S.  Williams  we  get 
many  interesting  glimpses  of  her  opinions 
on  religious  matters.  When  Mr.  Williams 
had  made  a  confession  to  her  which  he 
feared  might  displease  her  she  wrote 
back  :  *'  I  smile  at  you  for  supposing  .... 

that  I  could  blame  you  for  not  being  able, 

29 


The  Brontes 

when  you  look  among  sects  and  creeds,  to 
discover  any  one  that  you  can  exclusively 
and  implicitly  adopt  as  yours.  I  perceive 
myself  that  some  light  falls  on  earth  from 
heaven,  that  some  rays  from  the  shrine  ot 
truth  pierce  the  darkness  of  this  life  and 
world,  but  they  are  few,  and  faint,  and 
scattered."  When  the  same  correspon- 
dent speaks  of  his  views  as  resembling 
those  of  Emerson  she  writes  back  :  **  You 
are  already  aware  that  in  much  of  what 
you  say  my  opinion  coincides  with  those 
you  express."  But  she  urges  :  *'  Ignor- 
ance, weakness,  or  indiscretion  must  have 
their  props — they  cannot  walk  alone.  Let 
them  hold  by  what  is  purest  in  doctrine 
and  simplest  in  ritual ;  something  they 
must  have."  She  calls  the  Athanasian 
Creed  "profane,"  and  when  she  expresses 
her  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England 
she  explains  that  she  draws  the  line  at  this 
formulary.  Her  favourite  divines  are 
Arnold    and    Maurice.      For    the    former 

30 


Fact  and  Fiction 

she  expresses  an   unbounded  veneration  : 
''Were  there  but  ten  such  men  among  the 
hierarchs  of  the  Church  of  England  .... 
her  sanctuaries  would  be  purified,  her  rites 
reformed,  her  withered  veins  would  swell 
again  with  vital  sap  ;  but  it  is  not  so."     So 
again  in  another  letter  :  ''A  hundred  such 
men— fifty — nay  ten  or  five  such  righteous 
men  might  save  any  country  ;  might  vic- 
toriously champion  any  cause."     Maurice 
she  heard  preach  when    in    London,  and 
she  was  deeply  impressed.      ''  Had   I   the 
choice,"  she  wrote,   ''it  is  Maurice  whose 
ministry  I  should  frequent."     Miss  Mary  A. 
Robinson,  in  her  book  on  Emily  Bronte, 
says  of  her  heroine  that  she  concealed  her 
opinions    by  the    term   "  Broad    Church," 
and     "called    herself    a    disciple    of    the 
tolerant  and  thoughtful  Maurice."     There 
is   plainly  no  evidence  of  this,   and  it  is 
quite     possible     that     a     description     of 
Charlotte  has  been  mistakenly  applied   to 
Emily.     In  any  case  it  is  clear,  from  the 

31 


The  Brontes 

passages  I  have  quoted  from  Charlotte's 
letters — and  they  might  be  reinforced  by- 
passages  from  her  novels — that  '*  Broad 
Church "  is  the  only  title  which  can 
describe  her  opinions.  Had  she  been 
living  in  our  day  her  favourite  divines 
would  have  been  Page- Roberts  and 
Phillips  Brooks ;  her  attitude  resembled 
that  of  Tennyson  and  Browning  and  of 
most  men  of  genius  who  have  remained 
definitely  Christian.  To  describe  her  as 
infected  with  an  Orange  taint  and  profess- 
ing a  narrow  Evangelicism  is  seriously  to 
misrepresent  her. 


Charlotte  Bronte's  Secret. 

I  now  proceed  to  deal  with  the  other 
question  upon  which,  as  I  think,  Mr. 
Shorter  has  come  to  a  wroncf  conclusion. 
It  is  as  follows :  What  was  the  nature 
of    Charlotte     Bronte  s    feeling     towards 

32 


Fact  and  Fiction 

M.  HdgeVy  her  Brussels  teacher,  and  what 
effect  had  this  tipon  her  after-life  ?  Let 
me  state  at  the  outset  that  I  think  this 
subject  should  never  have  been  publicly 
touched  upon.  I  do  not  say  this  because 
I  sympathise  with  the  illogical  demand 
which  has  been  made  of  late  years  that 
portraits  of  public  men  should  have  all  the 
shadows  left  out.  A  biography  which  pre- 
sents only  what  is  good  in  the  career  of 
its  subject,  and  suppresses  the  rest,  propa- 
gates falsehood.  Charlotte  Bronte,  who  was 
the  very  soul  of  truth,  would  undoubtedly 
have  wished  to  be  presented  to  posterity 
as  she  really  was,  and  not  as  an  ideal 
figure.  But  the  episode  to  which  I  am 
about  to  refer  was  a  secret  which  she  kept 
hidden  from  her  dearest  friends  in  her  life- 
time. It  does  not,  as  I  shall  attempt  to 
show,  affect,  though  it  confirms,  our  esti- 
mate of  her  character,  and  the  knowledofe 
of  it  is  not  necessary  to  the  appreciation  of 
her  art.     It  should  have  been  left  alone. 

33  c  ^ 

/ 


/ 


The  Brontes 

But  recent  biographers  of  the  Brontes 
have  so  used  their  discretion  as  to  make 
any  further  reserve  harmful.  Sir  Wemyss 
Reid,  in  his  Monog7'aph,  was  the  first  to 
lift  the  curtain  which  concealed  the  tragedy 
of  Charlotte  Bronte's  life ;  he  described 
her  as  leaving  Brussels  disillusioned,  after 
having  "'  tasted  strange  joys  and  drunk 
deep  of  waters  the  very  bitterness  of 
which  seemed  to  endear  them  to  her." 
Mr.  Augustine  Birrell,  in  \\\^Life,  published 
ten  years  later,  while  protesting  that  ''it  is 
not  admirable  to  seek  to  wrest  the  secrets 
of  a  woman's  heart  from  the  works  of  her 
genius,"  tells  his  readers  they  will  find  all 
they  want  in  Villette,  and  will  carry  away 
from  it  "  what  they  cannot  doubt  to  be 
true  information," — in  fact,  while  professing 
anxiety  to  cover  up  the  secret,  he  makes  it 
known  to  all  the  world.  Other  writers 
have  referred  to  the  episode  with  the  same 
affectation  of  mystery,  and  Miss  Frederika 
Macdonald   has  more    recently  given,   on 

34 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  authority  of  some  Brussels  friends, 
details  which  would,  if  true,  have  been 
little  to  the  credit  of  Charlotte  Bronte.^ 
Luckily  Mr.  Shorter  is  able  absolutely  to 
dispose  of  these  latter  allegations,  and  for 
this  we  are  grateful.  I  am  apprehensive, 
however,  that  his  own  treatment  of  the 
Brussels  episode  may  have  an  effect  which 
he  him.self  would  be  the  first  to  regret. 
Mr.  Shorter  assures  us  that  there  was  no 
tragedy,  and  he  speaks  of  the  allegation 
that  there  was  as  "a  silly  and  offensive  im- 
putation." His  position  may  be  sum- 
marised thus  :  The  story  is  not  true^  but 
if  it  were  true  it  would  be  discreditable. 
All  admirers  of  Charlotte  Bronte  then  wait 
anxiously  for  a  disproof  which  shall  be 
final.  But  they  do  not  get  it  :  on  the  con- 
trary, the  facts  which  Mr.  Shorter  has 
to  tell  strengthen  previous  surmises,  and 
henceforth  more  than  ever  those  who  study 
Bronte  literature  will  be  of  the  opinion  of 

*  The  Woman  at  Home,  July  1894. 
35 


The  Brontes 

Sir  Wemyss  Reid  and  Mr.  Birrell.  Must 
we,  then,  suppose  Charlotte  guilty  of  dis- 
creditable conduct  such  as  will  depose  her 
from  the  high  pedestal  on  which  she  has 
been  hitherto  placed  ?  Such  a  supposi- 
tion is  only  rendered  possible  by  the 
mysterious  way  in  which  the  subject  has 
hitherto  been  treated.  I  should  have 
infinitely  preferred,  as  I  have  said,  that 
the  story  should  have  been  left  in  complete 
obscurity,  but  the  treatment  by  dark  hints 
and  siofnificant  nods  is  more  danorerous 
than  frank  discussion.  I  propose,  there- 
fore, to  join  issue  with  Mr.  Shorter,  and  to 
maintain.  The  story  is  probably  true,  but  if 
true  it  is  not  discreditable.  When  this 
part  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  history  is  dis- 
closed we  shall  pity  her  more,  but  I  trust 
we  shall  not  love  or  esteem  her  less. 

Let  me  now  state  the  evidence  relating 
to  the  Brussels  episode  as  it  presents  itself 
to  the  close  student  of  Bronte  literature. 
In  doing  so  I  shall  first  touch  upon  certain 

36 


Fact  and  Fiction 

phenomena  in  Charlotte's  writings  which 
have  always  seemed  to  suggest  some  secret 
love  tragedy  in  her  life. 

There  is  a  peculiarity  In  Charlotte 
Brontes  novels  which  differentiates  them 
from  all  other  writings  of  their  class — I 
refer  to  the  fact  that  love  in  them  is 
treated,  not  from  the  man's,  but  from  the 
woman's  point  of  view.  This  was  almost 
a  new  element  in  literature.  In  previous 
love-tales,  even  when  women  were  the 
authors,  it  was  the  man  who  longed,  who 
suffered,  who  was  left  in  suspense,  and  a 
veil  remained  over  the  heart  of  the  heroine 
until  shyly  half-lifted  in  the  closing  scenes. 
Charlotte  Bronte's  bolder  method  revealed 
to  us  a  hemisphere  previously  almost  un- 
known, or  at  least  not  mapped  out.  Turn 
to  Shirley,  and  it  is  not  the  hero,  but 
Caroline  Helstone,  who  loves  and  suffers, 
and  whose  fluctuating  hopes  and  fears 
make  the  interest  of  the  story.     This  new 

37 


The  Brontes 

departure  constituted  a  *'  return  to  nature  " 
as  real  as  that  accomplished  by  Words- 
worth in  the  domain  of  poetry.  It  attracted 
attention  from  the  first.  It  was  this  which 
made  those  critics  who  confused  the  con- 
ventional with  the  moral  describe  Jane 
Eyre  and  Villette  as  "  coarse."  It  was 
this  which  led  Miss  Martineau  to  dwell 
on  Charlotte's  ''  incessant  tendency  to  de- 
scribe the  need  of  being  loved,"  and  to 
complain  in  her  review  of  Villette,  *'A11 
the  female  characters,  in  all  their  thoughts 
and  lives,  are  full  of  one  thing,  or  are  re- 
garded by  the  reader  in  the  light  of  that 
one  thought — love.  It  begins  with  the 
child  of  six  years  old  at  the  opening,  and  it 
closes  with  it  at  the  last  page."  In  reality, 
however,  it  is  this  very  originality  of  treat- 
ment, combined  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
deep  things  of  the  heart  which  it  displays, 
which  constitutes  the  value  of  this  writer's 
work.  It  is  this  which  gives  her  the 
supremacy  over  the  other  novelists  of  her 

38 


Fact  and  Fiction 

sex.  Miss  Ferrier  and  Miss  Austen  were 
artists  as  skilful  in  the  use  of  the  brush  as 
Charlotte  Bronte  ;  indeed  the  former  sur- 
passes her  in  humour,  and  the  latter  in 
delicacy  of  touch.  But  both  these  authors 
dealt  with  subjects  which,  in  comparison 
with  hers,  were  trivial :  they  painted  the 
surface  of  life  ;  she  probed  its  depths. 
Even  George  Eliot,  incomparably  superior 
as  she  is  in  breadth  of  treatment  and 
variety  of  subject,  has  not  shown  us  the 
recesses  of  the  human  heart  as  has  the 
author  of  Villette  and  Shirley.  Charlotte 
Bronte  herself  was  quite  conscious  wherein 
lay  the  strength  of  her  genius ;  she  realised 
that  a  writer's  ability  to  deal  with  the 
deepest  passions  of  human  nature  is  the 
true  criterion  of  the  greatness  of  his  art. 
It  was  on  this  ground  she  challenged  Miss 
Austen's  right  to  that  supreme  position 
which  George  Henry  Lewes  claimed  for 
her.  Her  criticism  is  well  worth  recalling 
and  well  worth  pondering  : 

39 


/ 


The  Brontes 

"Jane  Austen  ruffles  her  reader  by 
nothing  vehement,  disturbs  him  by  nothing 
profound.  The  passions  are  perfectly  un- 
known to  her  ;  she  rejects  even  a  speaking 
acquaintance  with  that  stormy  sisterhood. 
Even  to  the  feeHngs  she  vouchsafes  no 
more  than  an  occasional  graceful  but  dis- 
tant recognition  ;  too  frequent  converse 
with  them  would  ruffle  the  smooth  elegance 
of  her  progress.  Her  business  Is  not  half 
so  much  with  the  human  heart  as  with  the 
human  eyes,  mouth,  hands  and  feet.  What 
sees  keenly,  speaks  aptly,  moves  flexibly, 
it  suits  her  to  study  ;  but  what  throbs  fast 
and  full,  though  hidden,  what  the  blood 
rushes  through,  what  is  the  unseen  seat  of 
life  and  the  sentient  target  of  death^-this 
Miss  Austen  ignores.  She  no  more  with 
her  mind's  eye  beholds  the  heart  of  her 
race  than  each  man,  with  bodily  vision,  sees 
the  heart  in  his  heavlnof  breast.  ...  If 
this  is  heresy  I  cannot  help  it." 

Charlotte  Bronte's  own  art  was  the  anti- 

40 


Fact  and  Fiction 

thesis  of  that  of  Jane  Austen.  It  was  hers 
to  depict  love  in  its  deeper,  more  tragic, 
more  serious  moods  and  aspects.  She 
could  give  us  the  ordinary  'Move  scene," 
and  charm  us  with  a  spell  such  as  few 
others  can  command — witness  the  passage 
in  The  Professor,  in  which  Crimsworth 
claims  Frances  Henri — but  it  is  the  love 
agony  which  is  her  element.  The  pain  of 
unrequited  affection  is  the  feeling  she 
never  tires  of  depicting,  and  in  describing 
this  she  has  no  equal.  Her  novels  may 
end  happily,  but  not  till  they  have  been 
made  the  medium  of  exhibiting  the  suffer- 
ing which  the  master  passion  brings  with 
it  when  unaccompanied  by  hope.  Nowhere 
else  are  to  be  found  such  piercing  cries  of 
lonely  anguish  as  may  be  heard  in  Shirley 
and  Villette.  They  are  the  very  de  pro- 
fundis  of  love  sunk  in  the  abyss  of  despair. 
And  their  author  insists  throughout  how 
much  greater  this  suffering  must  be  for 
women  than  for  men,   both  because  they 

41 


The  Brontes 

are  doomed  to  bear  in  silence,  and  because 
they  have  not  the  distraction  of  an  active 
career.  There  Is  a  passage  In  Shirley 
which  may  be  taken  as  the  text  upon 
which  most  of  the  novels  were  written  : 

''A  lover  feminine  can  say  nothing ;  if 
she  did  the  result  would  be  shame  and 
anguish,  inward  remorse  for  self-treachery. 
Nature  would  brand  such  demonstration 
as  a  rebellion  against  her  instincts,  and 
would  vindictively  repay  It  afterwards  by 
the  thunderbolt  of  self-contempt  smiting 
suddenly  in  secret.  .  .  .  You  expected 
bread,  and  you  have  got  a  stone  ;  break 
your  teeth  on  it,  and  don't  shriek  because 
the  nerves  are  martyrised.  Do  not  doubt 
that  your  mental  stomach — If  you  have 
such  a  thing — is  strong  as  an  ostrich's  ; 
the  stone  will  digest.  You  held  out  your 
hand  for  an  ^%'g,  and  fate  put  into  it  a 
scorpion.  Show  no  consternation ;  close 
your   fingers   firmly  upon  the  gift ;  let  it 

sting  through  your   palm.      Never  mind  : 

42 


Fact  and  Fiction 

In  time,  after  your  hand  and  arm  have 
swelled  and  quivered  long  with  torture,  the 
squeezed  scorpion  will  die,  and  you  will 
have  learnt  the  great  lesson  how  to  endure 
without  a  sob.  In  the  whole  remnant  of 
your  life,  if  you  survive  the  test — some,  it 
is  said,  die  under  it — you  will  be  stronger, 
wiser,  less  sensitive." 

Now,  on  finding  Charlotte  Bronte  so 
perfect  a  mistress  of  all  the  moods  of  love 
as  it  affects  women,  and  especially  of  the 
more  tragic  aspects  of  it,  one  cannot  but 
ask,  How  did  she  obtain  this  knowledge  ? 
Is  she  writing  merely  from  observation  or 
from  personal  feeling?  Luckily,  we  can 
give  the  answer  in  her  own  words.  *'  De- 
tails, situations  which  I  do  not  understand 
and  cannot  personally  inspect,  I  would  not 
for  the  world  meddle  with.  .  .  .  Besides, 
not  one  feeling  on  any  subject,  public  or 
private,  will  I  ever  affect  that  I  do  not 
really  experienced  But  this  assurance  is 
not  necessary  to   those  who  have  lovingly 

43 


The  Brontes 

studied  her  works.  The  light  that  is  in 
them  is  not  pale  reflected  light ;  the  burn- 
ing rays  come  direct  from  the  source  in 
which  they  were  kindled.  Personal  feel- 
ing vibrates  in  every  line  of  Charlotte's 
writing.  That  her  novels  are  the  outcome 
of  personal  experience  is,  to  those  who 
know  her  best,  a  self-evident  truth. 

We  turn,  then,  to  the  numerous  lives  of 
Charlotte  Bronte  to  see  where  and  when 
were  learnt  those  bitter  lessons  which  her 
writings  teach.  We  knew  her  well  before 
Mr.  Shorter  s  book  appeared ;  and  now 
she  is  perhaps  more  minutely  known  to 
us  than  any  other  person  of  literary  genius, 
save  perhaps  Samuel  Johnson — and  even 
this  is  a  doubtful  exception,  for  our  know- 
ledge of  Johnson  is  confined  to  his  table- 
talk  and  his  outward  characteristics,  he 
never  bared  his  heart  to  us  as  Charlotte 
does  in  her  novels.  We  can  now  trace 
step    by   step    every    mile    of    her    life's 

44 


Fact  and  Fiction 

journey  ;  we  know  all  her  friends  ;  we  can 
peruse  her  copious  correspondence ;  we 
can  identify  almost  every  character  in 
her  novels,  even  the  most  subordinate. 
And  when  we  examine  all  this  informa- 
tion, this  truth  is  forced  upon  us :  that 
the  characteristic  experiences  recorded  in 
her  books  were  not  gained  at  Haworth : 
there  is  no  room  for  any  love  tragedy  there. 
The  only  gentlemen  she  met  there  were 
the  neighbouring  curates ;  through  her 
correspondence  we  now  know  them  all, 
and  what  she  thought  of  them,  and  her 
remarks  are  frank  but  the  reverse  of  com- 
plimentary. The  way  to  Charlotte's  heart, 
we  may  be  sure,  lay  through  her  intellect 
and  imagination,  and  the  curates,  as  she 
describes  them,  are  not  the  men  to  have 
captivated  her.  Plain  though  she  was  she 
seems  to  have  exercised  a  peculiar  fascina- 
tion over  some  natures.  She  had  four  offers 
of  marriage  in  all — two  before  she  became 
famous  and  two  after  ;  and  if  we  glance  at 

45 


The  Brontes 

the  way  in  which  she  dealt  with  them,  we 
shall  learn  that  she  certainly  was  not  easily 
susceptible  of  love. 

Her  first  suitor  was  the  Rev.  Henry 
Nussey,  a  brother  of  her  life-long  friend. 
Her  reply  was  of  a  very  business-like 
character,  explaining  that  ''delay  was 
wholly  unnecessary,"  returning  "a  decided 
negative,"  and  giving  him  a  description  oi 
the  kind  of  wife  he  ought  to  choose. 

The  next  aspirant  was  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Price,  a  young  Irish  clergyman  fresh  from 
Dublin  University,  who  proposed  to  her 
after  having  spent  only  one  afternoon  and 
evening  in  her  company.  On  this  adven- 
ture she  writes  to  her  friend  Miss  Nussey  : 
"Well,  thought  I,  I  have  heard  of  love 
at  first  sight,  but  this  beats  all ;  I  leave 
you  to  guess  what  my  answer  would  be, 
convinced  that  you  will  not  do  me  the 
injustice  of  guessing  wrong.  When  we 
meet  I'll  show  you  the  letter.  I  hope 
you  are  laughing  heartily." 

46 


Fact  and  Fiction 

This  was  in  the  year  1839.  Nearly  ten 
years  elapsed  before  another  offer  came, 
and  meanwhile  the  Brussels  episode  had 
taken  place. 

The  third  suitor  was  a  Mr.  James 
Taylor,  a  literary  gentleman  connected 
with  Messrs.  Smith  and  Elder.  He  was 
in  every  way  a  man  to  be  respected,  and 
was  most  persevering  in  his  endeavours 
to  attain  his  end.  But,  like  most  persons 
who  are  liable  to  fall  into  the  grasp 
of  a  tyrannous  affection,  Charlotte  was 
capable  also  of  strong  antipathies.  She 
writes  :  ''  Friendship,  gratitude,  esteem  I 
have  ;  but  each  moment  that  he  came  near 
me,  and  that  I  could  see  his  eyes  fastened 
upon  me,  my  veins  ran  ice.  Now  that 
he  is  away  I  feel  far  more  gently  towards 
him  ;  it  is  only  close  by  that  I  grow  rigid 
— stiffening  with  a  strange  mixture  of  ap- 
prehension and  anger,  which  nothing  softens 
but  his  retreat  and  a  perfect  subduing  of 
his   manner."     She   respected   and    pitied 

47 


The  Brontes 

him,  but  she  was  firm  in  insisting  that 
as  she  did  not  love  him  she  could  not 
marry  him. 

The  story  of  the  wooing  of  the  Rev. 
A.  B.  Nicholls,  three  years  later,  is  as 
interesting  as  anything  in  the  novels. 
When  the  first  offer  came  Charlotte  felt 
that  she  could  not  marry  him,  and  yet 
the  manner  in  which  he  pleaded  his  suit 
evidently  impressed  her :  "  Shaking  from 
head  to  foot,  looking  deadly  pale,  speaking 
low,  vehemently,  yet  with  difficulty,  he 
made  me  for  the  first  time  feel  what  it 
costs  a  man  to  declare  affection  when  he 
doubts  response."  She  refused  him,  and 
her  father,  as  we  have  seen,  treated  his 
pretensions  to  his  daughter's  hand  with 
disdain.  Time  passed  on,  and  the  suffer- 
ings which  the  rejected  lover  endured 
were  such  as  could  not  fail  to  touch 
Charlotte's  pity.  We  read  of  his  breaking 
down  while  administering  the  Communion 

to    Charlotte    in   Haworth  Church :    '*  He 

48 


Fact  and  Fiction 

struggled,  faltered,  then  lost  command 
over  himself,  stood  before  my  eyes,  and 
in  the  sight  of  all  the  communicants,  white, 
shaking,  voiceless."  The  women  sobbed 
audibly  and  tears  came  to  Charlotte's  eyes. 
Another  touching  scene  took  place  when 
he  called  to  take  his  final  leave  of  Mr. 
Bronte  :  ''  Perceiving  that  he  stayed  long 
before  going  out  of  the  gate,  and,  re- 
membering his  long  grief,  I  took  courage 
and  went  out,  trembling  and  miserable. 
I  found  him  leaning  against  the  garden 
door  in  a  paroxysm  of  anguish,  sobbing 
as  women  never  sob.  Of  course  I  went 
straight  to  him.  Very  few  words  were 
exchanged,  those  few  barely  articulate." 
A  passion  mighty  as  this  was  bound 
to  make  an  impression  sooner  or  later 
upon  a  heart  so  compassionate  as  Char- 
lotte's, and  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
her  writing  to  her  confidante :  "  Dear 
Nell,  without  loving  him  I  don't  like  to 
think   of  him    suffering    in    solitude,    and 

49  P 


The  Brontes 

wish  him  anywhere,  so  that  he  were 
happy."  Pity  is  proverbially  akin  to  love, 
and  within  eighteen  months  from  the  first 
proposal  a  happy  marriage  was  consum- 
mated. But  to  the  last  she  had  no  illusion 
as  to  the  nature  of  her  own  feelings.  Only 
a  few  weeks  before  the  wedding  she  wrote  : 
*'  I  am  still  very  calm,  very  inexpectant. 
What  I  taste  of  happiness  is  of  the  soberest 
order.  I  trust  to  love  my  husband.  I  am 
grateful  for  his  tender  love  to  me.  I  believe 
him  to  be  an  affectionate,  a  conscientious, 
a  high-principled  man ;  and  if,  with  all 
this,  I  should  yield  to  regrets  that  fine 
talents,  congenial  tastes  and  thoughts  are 
not  added,  it  seems  to  me  I  should  be 
most  presumptuous  and  thankless." 

After  marriage  she  writes  in  the  same 
sober  strain.  Mr.  Nicholls  indeed  is  en- 
titled to  the  gratitude  of  all  who  appreciate 
the  genius  of  Charlotte  Bronte.  He  brought 
the  first  taste  of  unalloyed  happiness  into 
her  life.     He  taught  her  the  sweet   and 

5^ 


Fact  and  Fiction 

tranquil  pleasures  of  an  affection  which 
is  almost  more  precious  than  love.  But 
it  is  plain  that  the  over-mastering  passion 
depicted  in  the  novels  had  no  place  in 
her  relations  with  him.  The  flame,  it 
would  seem,  had  already  passed  on  her, 
and  left  behind  nothing  that  was  inflam- 
mable. No  chapter  in  her  life  at  Haworth, 
before  the  Brussels  episode,  can  account 
for  the  phenomena  of  the  novels,  and  all 
that  took  place  there  afterwards  showed 
that  the  experiences  upon  which  the  novels 
were  founded  were  already  things  of  the 
past. 

To  Brussels,  then,  perforce,  we  are  driven 
if  we  are  to  continue  our  quest.  Every  one 
knows  how  Charlotte  and  Emily,  aged 
twenty-six  and  twenty-four  respectively, 
went  to  the  Pensionnat  Heger  in  the  Rue 
d'Isabelle  to  learn  French  and  attain  other 
accomplishments.  At  the  head  of  this 
establishment    was    Madame    Heger,   but 

51 


The  Brontes 

literature  was  taught  by  her  husband,  the 
Paul  Emanuel  of  Villette.  Any  one  who 
wishes  to  know  his  general  characteristics 
has  only  to  turn  to  the  famous  novel,  where 
he  is  painted  with  an  effect  more  lifelike 
than  that  of  any  photograph.  Two  points 
only  need  to  be  emphasised.  The  first  is 
his  great  intellectual  ability.  All  accounts 
agree  that,  though  he  wTote  no  book,  his 
literary  attainments  were  remarkable,  and 
his  capacity  for  awakening  enthusiasm  for 
what  is  great  in  literature  amounted  to 
genius.  His  critical  insight  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  at  his  interview  with  Mrs. 
Gaskell,  at  a  time  when  Emily  was  un- 
known, and  the  fame  of  Charlotte  was 
spreading  widely  in  Europe,  he  gave  the 
palm  of  genius  to  the  younger  sister,  and 
sketched  her  characteristics  in  language  as 
terse  as  it  was  true.  The  other  point  to 
be  noted  is  that  he  was  a  man  of  deeply 
religious  character.  Mrs.  Gaskell  speaks 
of  him  as  "  a  kindly,  wise,  good  and  religious 

52 


Fact  and  Fiction 

man;"  and  a  lady  in  Brussels  thus  described 
him  some  ten  years  after  the  Brontes  had 
left  Brussels  : 

**  Je  ne  connais  pas  personnellement 
M.  Heger,  mais  je  sais  qu'il  est  peu  de 
caracteres  aussi  nobles,  aussi  admirables 
que  le  sien.  II  est  un  des  membres  les 
plus  z61es  de  cette  Societe  de  S.  Vincent 
de  Paul  dont  je  I'ai  deja  parl4  et  ne  se 
contente  pas  de  servir  les  pauvres  et  les 
malades,  mais  leur  consacre  encore  les 
soirees.  Apres  des  journees  absorb^es 
tout  entieres  par  les  devoirs  que  sa  place 
lui  impose,  il  reunit  les  pauvres,  les 
ouvriers,  leur  donne  des  cours  gratuits,  et 
trouve  encore  le  moyen  de  les  amuser  en 
les  instruisant.  Ce  d^vouement  te  dira 
assez  que  M.  Heger  est  profondement  et 
ouvertement  religieux." 

This  was  the  man  who  first  gave  Char- 
lotte that  intellectual  sympathy  for  which 
she  must  have  been  craving  all  her  life ; 
who,  day  after  day,  sat  by  her  side  or  bent 

53 


The  Brontes 

over  her  shoulder,  correcting  her  mistakes, 
reproving  her  faults,  and  acting  towards 
her  as  Paul  Emanuel  acted  towards  Lucy 
Snowe  or  Crimsworth  towards  Frances 
Henri.  He  did  not,  however,  share  the 
warm  feelings  with  which,  in  fiction, 
these  two  gentlemen  regarded  their  pupils. 
He  was  interested,  no  doubt,  in  Charlotte's 
intellectual  freshness,  and  he  pitied  her 
obvious  forlornness.  Miss  Frederika  Mac- 
donald,  who  was  his  pupil  many  years 
later,  writes  :  *'  He  was  a  man  of  an  extra- 
ordinarily tender  heart  as  well  as  a  powerful 
mind,  whose  most  terrible  moods — and  his 
moods  were  sometimes  terrible — would  sud- 
denly melt  and  soften  at  the  spectacle  of 
any  token  of  genuine  distress."  We  may 
be  sure  that  the  loneliness  of  the  friendless 
girls  would  appeal  very  strongly  to  him. 
He  admired,  too,  Charlotte's  character, 
and  spoke  in  warm  terms  to  Mrs.  Gaskell 
of  her  unselfishness.  But  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  M.  Heger  had  no  feeling 

54 


Fact  and  Fiction 

towards  his  plain  awkward  pupil  which  he 
was  not  willing  for  the  whole  world  to  see. 

When  the  Bronte  girls  had  been  at 
Brussels  nine  months  their  aunt  died,  and 
they  hurried  back  to  Haworth  Vicarage. 
Emily  then  elected  to  stay  at  home  and 
keep  house  for  her  father,  but  Charlotte 
returned  to  Brussels.  She  herself  thus 
comments  upon  this  decision  in  a  letter 
to  Miss  Nussey : 

'*I  returned  to  Brussels  after  aunt's 
death  against  my  conscience,  prompted  by 
what  then  seemed  an  irresistible  impulse. 
I  was  punished  for  my  selfish  folly  by  a 
total  withdrawal  for  more  than  two  years 
of  happiness  and  peace  of  mind." 

Mr.  Shorter  endeavours  to  account  for 
this  confession  by  saying  that  old  Mr. 
Bronte  took  to  excessive  whisky-drink- 
ing at  this  time  under  the  influence  of  a 
curate  of  convivial  tastes,  and  that  Char- 
lotte felt  she  should  have  stayed  to  protect 
him  :  he  fails  to  see  that  this  leaves  the 

55 


The  Brontes 

really  suggestive  phrases  In  this  passage 
unexplained.  Granted  that  anxiety  for  her 
father  caused  a  part,  or  even  the  whole, 
of  the  uneasiness  of  conscience  of  which 
Charlotte  speaks,  the  question  remains, 
what  was  that  ''irresistible  impulse"  which 
impelled  so  dutiful  a  daughter  to  act  thus  ? 
And  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  last 
half  of  the  statement  ?  Mr.  Shorter  admits 
that  the  daughter's  return  speedily  rescued 
the  father  from  his  evil  habit,  and  she  only 
stayed  in  Brussels  one  year.  Yet  Char- 
lotte, who  was  accustomed  to  weigh  her 
words,  states  thaty^r  two  years  she  suffered 
a  total  withdrawal  of  happiness  and  peace 
of  mind.  Whatever  it  may  have  been, 
something  must  have  happened  at  Brussels 
to  account  for  this  melancholy  result. 

Charlotte's  second  stay  at  the  Pensionnat 
was  less  happy  than  the  first  had  been. 
Emily  was  no  longer  with  her,  and  her 
friend  Mary  Taylor  had  left  the  city. 
She  was  now  more  lonely  than  ever,  had 

56 


Fact  and  Fiction 

a  deeper  craving  for  sympathy,  and  was 
more  grateful  for  every  word  and  look  of 
kindness.  Meanwhile  she  was  brought 
into  still  closer  relationship  with  M. 
Heger,  for  she  not  only  received  from  him 
lessons  in  literature  but  she  instructed  him 
and  his  brother-in-law  in  English.  At 
times,  especially  in  the  vacation,  when  she 
was  left  almost  entirely  alone,  she  suffered 
terribly,  as  all  readers  of  Villette  knows. 
It  was  shortly  before  she  left  Brussels  that 
she  paid  that  visit  to  the  Confessional 
which  she  has  dramatised  in  her  greatest 
novel.  Mr.  Shorter  prints  a  letter  to 
Emily  in  which  she  speaks  of  it  lightly  as 
a  whim  ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  it  must 
have  been  desperate  need  which  em- 
boldened this  sensitive  girl — so  shy  that 
she  could  not  pass  a  stranger  on  the 
Haworth  roads  without  putting  up  her 
hand  to  hide  her  face — to  seek  advice  in 
such  a  quarter.  In  after  years,  in  one  of 
her  letters  she  wrote  of  Lucy  Snowe — and 

57 


The  Brontes 

Lucy  Snowe,  we  all  know,  was  Charlotte 
Bronte — '*  It  was  no  impetus  of  healthy 
feelinor  which  uro^ed  her  to  the  confes- 
sional,  it  was  the  semi-delirium  of  grief 
and  sickness  ; "  and  this,  we  may  be  sure,  is 
the  true  account.  What  could  have  been 
the  nature  of  her  communication  to  the 
father  confessor  ?  She  says  to  Emily,  "  I 
actually  did  confess — a  real  confession  "  ; 
but  we  may  safely  conclude  that  it  was  of 
sorrow  rather  than  of  sin  she  spoke,  and 
that  she  sought  not  absolution  but  con- 
solation. Consolation,  however,  did  not 
readily  come.  Three  months  later  we  find 
her  writing  to  Emily  :  ''  Low  spirits  have 
afflicted  me  much  lately.  ...  I  am  not  ill 
in  body.  It  is  only  the  mind  that  is  a 
little  shaken — for  want  of  comfort." 

Suddenly  Charlotte  resolved  to  return 
home.  She  was  helped  to  this  decision  by 
Mary  Taylor,  to  whom  she  wrote  speaking 
of  the  low  and  depressed  condition  into 
which  she  had  fallen.      Her  friend  advised 

58 


Fact  and  Fiction 

her  to  go  home  or  elsewhere  at  once, 
otherwise  she  would  not  have  energy  to 
move,  and  her  friends  would  be  in  ignor- 
ance of  her  condition.  For  this  advice 
Charlotte  displayed  a  gratitude  so  deep 
that  it  seems  to  have  puzzled  both  her 
friend  and  Mrs.  Gaskell ;  but  to  those  who 
believe  in  the  Brussels  tragedy  Mary 
Taylor's  words  will  be  significant  of 
much  : 

**  Charlotte  wrote  that  I  had  done  her  a 
great  service,  that  she  should  certainly 
follow  my  advice,  and  was  much  obliged  to 
me.  I  have  often  wondered  at  this  letter. 
Though  she  patiently  tolerated  advice  she 
could  always  put  it  aside  and  do  as  she 
thought  fit.  More  than  once  afterwards 
she  mentioned  the  *  service '  I  had  done 
her.  She  sent  me  ^lo  to  New  Zealand 
on  hearing  some  exaggerated  accounts  of 
my  circumstances,  and  told  me  she  hoped 
it  would  come  in  seasonably ;  it  was  a  debt 
she  owed  me  '  for  the  service  I  had  done 

59 


The  Brontes 

her.'     I  should  think  ^lo  was  a  quarter  of 
her  income." 

Mrs.  Gaskell  makes  it  clear  that  M.  and 
Mme.  Heger  were  surprised  at  her  sudden 
resolution,  but  as  she  alleged  as  a  reason 
her  father's  increasinof  blindness — which, 
as  Mrs.  Gaskell  admits,  was  not  the  whole 
reason — they  could  offer  no  opposition.  Her 
first  biographer  tells  of  her  deep  distress  and 
tears  when  the  time  of  parting  came.  On 
whose  account  were  the  tears  shed  ?  We 
know  what  she  thought  of  Madame  Heger, 
whom  she  has  pilloried  as  Madame  Becke 
and  Mdlle.  Reuter;  she  despised  the  pupils, 
she  detested  the  teachers.  But,  indeed,  she 
answers  my  question  herself  in  a  letter 
written  a  month  after  her  return  home: 
*'I  suffered  much  before  I  left  Brussels.  I 
think,  however  long  I  live,  I  shall  not 
forget  what  the  parting  with  M.  Heger 
cost  me."  In  the  same  letter  she  writes  : 
*'  I  do  not  know  whether  you  feel  as  I  do, 
but  there  are  times  now  when  it  appears 

60 


Fact  and  Fiction 

to  me  as  If  all  my  ideas  and  feelings, 
except  a  few  friendships  and  affections,  are 
changed  from  what  they  used  to  be ; 
something  in  one,  which  used  to  be  enthu- 
siasm, is  tamed  down  and  broken.  I  have 
fewer  illusions  ;  what  I  wish  for  now  is 
active  exertion — a  stake  in  life.  Haworth 
now  seems  such  a  quiet  spot,  buried  away 
from  the  world.  ...  It  seems  as  if  I  ought 
to  be  working,  and  braving  the  rough 
realities  of  the  world  as  other  people  do." 
Readers  of  Shirley  will  remember  several 
passages  in  which  Caroline  Helstone,"^ 
when  feeling  ''the  pangs  of  despis'd  love," 
utters  just  such  plaints  as  the  above. 
Plainly  Charlotte  was  still  suffering  under 
''the  total  withdrawal  of  all  happiness  and 
peace  of  mind." 

Such   were    the    facts   of  the    Brussels 
episode  as  they  were    known   before    the 

*  Caroline  Helstone  is  often  said  to  be  a  portrait  of 
Miss  Ellen  Nussey,  but  this  is  true  only  of  external 
aspect  :  the  inner  life  depicted  is  undoubtedly  that  of 
Charlotte  Bronte. 

6i 


The  Brontes 

publication  of  Mr.  Shorter's  book.  But 
Mr.  Shorter,  who  asks  us  to  scout  the  idea 
of  any  tragedy  of  the  heart  at  Brussels, 
adds  one  or  two  facts  which  make  it 
almost  impossible  to  follow  his  advice. 
He  admits  that  Madame  Heger  and  her 
children  suspected  that  Charlotte  felt  too 
warmly  for  her  teacher,  and  he  tells  us  on 
unimpeachable  authority  that  the  subse- 
quent correspondence  between  Charlotte 
and  M.  Heger,  after  it  had  lasted  only 
eighteen  months,  came  to  an  abrupt  end 
through  the  intervention  of  Madame 
H6ger,  who  objected  to  it.  The  facts 
were  sufficient  before  to  convince  such 
close  Bronte  students  as  Sir  Wemyss  Reid 
and  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  of  the  reality 
of  the  Brussels  tragedy.  With  the  addi- 
tions which  Mr.  Shorter  makes  it  will  be 
more  difficult  than  ever  to  stop  short  of 
this  conclusion. 

If    now    we    turn     from    the    Brussels 

62 


Fact  and  Fiction 

history,  as  recorded  in  the  biographies,  to 
Charlotte's  novels,  one  or  two  significant 
phenomena  immediately  present  them- 
selves. We  are  surprised  to  find  how 
absolutely  Charlotte  accepts  M.  Heger  as 
her  beau  iddal.  Her  heroes  are  nearly 
always  dark  men  of  intense  nature,  strong- 
willed,  masterful,  abrupt,  with  a  dash  of 
the  pedagogue,  and  yet  at  heart  chivalrous 
and  tender.  I  do  not  mean  that  there 
is  any  monotony  in  Charlotte's  picture 
gallery.  Each  character  has  its  own 
distinct  individuality,  but  they  remind  one 
of  the  ''composite  photograph"  which  is 
made  by  combining  several  faces  into  one, 
and  in  each  there  is  a  strong  blend  of  the 
Brussels  professor.  In  Paul  Emanuel  we 
have  an  undisguised  portrait  of  M.  Heger: 
it  is  as  startlingly  lifelike  as  a  Moroni 
painting ;  no  other  character  can  vie  with 
it  in  piquancy  and  interest.  Next  to  it 
in  vividness  comes  old  Helstone,  Rector 
of   Briarfield,    the    ''clerical    cossack"    of 

63 


The  Brontes 

Shirley ;  he  is  just  the  Belgian  professor 
with  the  imagination  and  the  tender  heart 
omitted  from  his  composition.  Robert 
and  Louis  Moore  and  Crimsworth  are 
merely  paler  copies  of  the  same  original 
with  one  or  two  distinguishing  traits 
thrown  in.  Even  Rochester  has  a  few  of 
the  same  lineaments,  though  here  some 
other  face  is  superimposed  on  the  dark 
intense  visage  which  is  so  familiar  to  us. 
As  when  we  have  gazed  long  on  some 
object  in  a  bright  light  it  reproduces  itself 
in  whatever  direction  we  look,  so  was 
Charlotte's  vision  haunted  by  the  figure  of 
M.  Heger.  Account  for  it  how  we  may,  it 
is  clear  that  this  remarkable  man  domi- 
nated her  imagination. 

Another  significant  phenomenon  is  the 
frequency  of  love  scenes  between  master 
and  pupil  in  these  works  ;  indeed,  the  thing 
is  repeated  so  often  that  only  the  sweet 
magic  of  Charlotte  Bronte's  art  could  have 
prevented    it    from    becoming    wearisome. 

64 


Fact  and  Fiction 

In  the  pages  of  three  out  of  her  four 
novels  love  and  lessons  always  go  on 
simultaneously.  In  this  pleasant  way 
Robert  Moore  in  Shirley  teaches  the 
charming  Caroline  Helstone,  and  Louis 
Moore  the  equally  charming  Shirley 
Keelder.  So  in  Villette  does  M.  Paul 
Emanuel  teach  Lucy  Snowe,  and  so  in 
The  Professor  does  William  Crimsworth 
instruct  Frances  Henri.  How  was  it  that 
this  great  writer  could  hardly  picture  any 
wooing  which  did  not  involve  this  relation- 
ship ?  It  is  certain,  of  course,  that  no 
approach  to  love-making  ever  went  on  in 
the  Pensionnat  Heger,  but  it  is  difficult  to 
resist  the  impression  that  it  was  the  play 
of  the  imagination  on  the  memory  of  her 
Brussels  experiences  which  produced  the 
scenes  which  have  so  subtle  a  charm  for 
us. 

In  Jane  Eyre  alone  the  lovers  do  not 
stand  in  the  relation  of  teacher  and  taught  ; 
but  Jane  Eyre  too  lends  its  corroboration  to 

6s  E 


The  Brontes 

the  theory  we  are  considering.  For  what 
is  the  thesis  of  the  book  ?  The  suffering 
which  is  occasioned  to  a  woman  who  is 
innocently  led  into  love  for  one  who  belongs 
to  another ;  the  agony  which  in  such  case 
the  parting  costs ;  the  long  and  painful 
struggle  which  ensues  in  attempting  to 
crucify  affections  which  have  no  longer 
the  right  to  live.  How  intensely  all  this 
is  indicated  in  Jane  Eyre  all  readers  will 
know.  How  poignant  is  the  feeling  in  the 
following  passage  : 

''  Self- abandoned,  relaxed,  and  effortless, 
I  seemed  to  have  laid  me  down  in  the 
dried-up  bed  of  a  great  river  ;  I  heard  a 
flood  loosened  in  remote  mountains,  and 
felt  the  torrent  come.  .  .  .  The  whole 
consciousness  of  my  life  lorn,  my  love 
lost,  my  hope  quenched,  my  faith  death- 
struck,  swayed  full  and  mighty  above  me 
in  one  sullen  mass.  That  bitter  hour 
cannot  be  described  :  in  truth  '  the  waters 
came  into  my  soul  ;    I  sank  in    the    deep 

66 


Fact  and  Fiction 

mire ;  I  felt  no  standing ;  I  came  into 
deep  waters  ;  the  floods  overflowed  me.' 

*'  Some  time  in  the  afternoon  I  raised 
my  head,  and,  looking  round  and  seeing 
the  western  sun  gilding  the  sign  of  its 
decline  on  the  wall,  I  asked,  '  What  am 
I  to  do?' 

''  But  the  answer  my  mind  gave — *  Leave 
Thornfield  at  once  ' — was  so  prompt,  so 
dread,  that  I  stopped  my  ears  :  I  said  I 
could  not  bear  such  words  now.  '  That  I 
am  not  Edward  Rochester's  bride  is  the 
least  part  of  my  woe,'  I  alleged:  'that  I 
have  wakened  out  of  the  most  glorious 
dreams  and  found  them  all  void  and  vain 
is  a  horror  I  could  bear  and  master ;  but 
that  I  must  leave  him  decidedly,  instantly, 
entirely,  is  intolerable.     I  cannot  do  it.' 

"  But  then  a  voice  within  me  averred 
that  I  could  do  it  and  foretold  that  I 
should  do  it.  I  wrestled  with  my  own 
resolution  :  I  wanted  to  be  weak,  that  I 
might  avoid  the  awful  passage  of  further 

67 


The  Brontes 

suffering  that  I  saw  laid  out  for  me  ;  and 
conscience,  turned  tyrant,  held  passion  by 
the  throat,  told  her  tauntingly  she  had  yet 
but  dipped  her  dainty  foot  in  the  slough, 
and  swore  that  with  that  arm  of  iron  he 
would  thrust  her  down  to  unsounded  depths 
of  agony. 

'* '  Let  me  be  torn  away,  then  ! '  I  cried. 
'  Let  another  help  me.' 

" '  No ;  you  shall  tear  yourself  away, 
none  shall  help  you :  you  shall  yourself 
pluck  out  your  right  eye  :  yourself  cut  off 
your  right. hand:  your  heart  shall  be  the 
victim,  and  you  the  priest  to  transfix 
it.'" 

The  wrench,  Jane  Eyre  tells  us,  was 
worse  than  death  : 

"  *  If  I  could  go  out  of  life  now,  without 
too  sharp  a  pang,  it  would  be  well  for  me,' 
I  thought  ;  '  then  I  should  not  have  to 
make  the  effort  of  cracking  my  heart- 
strings in  rending  them  from  among  Mr. 
Rochester's.      I  must  leave  him,  it  appears 

68 


Fact  and  Fiction 

I  do  not  want  to  leave  him — I  cannot 
leave  him.' " 

But  in  the  novel  we  are  never  permitted 
to  doubt  that  the  heroine  will  be  true  to 
conscience.  In  her  secret  heart  her  deter- 
mination was  taken  from  the  first : 

"  '  I  will  hold  to  the  principles  received 
by  me  when  I  was  sane,  and  not  mad — as 
I  am  now.  Laws  and  principles  are  not 
for  the  times  when  there  is  no  temptation : 
they  are  for  such  moments  as  this  when 
body  and  soul  rise  in  mutiny  against  their 
rigour ;  stringent  are  they ;  inviolate  they 
shall  be.' " 

No  moralist  ever  more  sternly  Inculcated 
submission  to  conscience  and  principle  than 
did  Charlotte  Bronte  ;  none  more  unflinch- 
ingly practised  it. 

Concerning  the  bearing  of  Shirley  and 
The  Professor  upon  the  theory  of  a 
Brussels  tragedy  enough  has  been  said. 
As  to  Villette,  it  is  now  everywhere  ac- 
knowledged   that    the   part    of    it    which 

69 


The  Brontes 

deals  with  the  Pensionnat  is  autobiography 
with    a    mere    touch    of    romance    added. 
All  the  characters  in  it  can  be  identified : 
nothing  is  changed  from  the  reality  except 
the    names.     When    we    remember    that 
Charlotte   herself    is    Lucy    Snowe,    and 
that  M.  Hdger  is   M.  Paul  Emanuel,   the 
curious  ending  of  the  book  is  significant. 
Old  Mr.  Bronte  was  urgent  that  the  story 
should   end   happily,    and   that    the    Pro- 
fessor and  his  pupil  should  marry  ;  but  his 
daughter,    usually    so    compliant    to    his 
wishes,    proved   in    this   matter  inflexible. 
She  knew  that  there  is  a  point   at  which 
it  is  necessary  to  draw  the   line  even  in 
imagination.       The   lovers    in    her   other 
novels   were   composite   characters ;    they 
had  no  absolute  originals  in   real  life  ;  she 
could  do  with  them  as  she  would.     But  as 
regards   Lucy  Snowe  and   Paul  Emanuel 
it  was  different  :  hence  their  ultimate  fate 
is   left   shrouded   in  uncertainty,   and    the 

curtain  falls  on  them  still  unwed. 

70 


Fact  and  Fiction 

In  the  poems  of  Charlotte  Bronte  we 
find  traces  of  the  same  thoughts  and  ideas 
which  so  persistently  haunt  the  novels. 
As  a  rule  her  verses  are  jejune  enough, 
but  the  following,  taken  from  a  poem 
entitled  ''  Frances  " — a  name  significant 
to  those  who  have  read  The  Professor — 
are  not  wanting  in  life  and  passion : 

"  God  help  me  in  my  grievous  need, 
God  help  me  in  my  inward  pain ; 
Which  cannot  ask  for  pity's  meed, 
Which  has  no  licence  to  complain, 

"  Which  must  be  borne ;  yet  who  can  bear 
Hours  long,  days  long,  a  constant  weight — 
The  yoke  of  absolute  despair, 
A  suffering  wholly  desolate  ? 

"  Who  can  for  ever  crush  the  heart. 
Restrain  its  throbbings,  curb  its  life  ? 
Dissemble  truth  with  ceaseless  art, 
With  outward  calm  mask  inward  strife  ? 

"  Unloved  I  love;  unwept  I  weep  ; 
Grief  I  restrain,  hope  I  repress  : 
Vain  is  the  anguish — fixed  and  deep ; 
Vainer  desires  and  dreams  of  bliss. 


71 


The  Brontes 

"  For  me  the  universe  is  dumb, 

Stone-deaf  and  blank  and  wholly  blind  ; 
Life  I  must  bound,  existence  sum 
In  the  strait  limits  of  one  mind ; 

"  That  mind  my  own.     Oh  1  narrow  cell. 
Dark,  imageless — a  living  tomb  ! 
There  must  I  sleep,  there  wake  and  dwell 
Content  with  palsy,  pain  and  gloom. 
«  *  *  « 

"  Still  strong  and  young,  and  warm  with  vigour. 
Though  scathed,  I  long  shall  greenly  grow ; 
And  many  a  storm  of  wildest  rigour 
Shall  yet  break  o'er  my  shivered  bough. 

"  Rebellious  now  to  blank  inertion, 

My  unused  strength  demands  a  task ; 
Travel  and  toil  and  full  exertion 
Are  the  last  only  boon  I  ask." 

Here  again  we  have  a  love  that  must 
remain  unspoken,  a  love  which  must  not 
even  ask  for  pity  ;  here  again  we  have  the 
agony  of  unrequited  affection,  the  longing 
to  be  set  such  toilsome  tasks  as  may 
deaden  sensation  to  the  pangs  within. 
For  my  part  I  cannot  but  think  that  the 
feelings  thus  often  and  eloquently  expressed 

72 


Fact  and  Fiction 

were  the  feelings  not  merely  of  the  author 
but  of  the  woman. 

I  might  multiply  indefinitely  passages 
from  Charlotte's  works  which  illustrate  the 
hidden  tragedy  of  her  life  ;  but  let  these 
suffice  as  specimens.  I  think  every  one 
will  admit  that,  when  taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  facts  of  her  history,  they  constitute 
a  body  of  evidence  not  easily  explained 
away.  No  doubt  it  falls  short  of  absolute 
demonstration.  But  if  the  strength  of  a 
theory  is  to  be  measured  by  the  complete- 
ness with  which  it  accounts  for  the  facts 
of  the  subject-matter  to  which  it  is  applied, 
then  this  theory  must  be  accounted  strong 
indeed.  In  the  course  of  our  inquiry 
many  questions  have  presented  themselves : 
Where  did  Charlotte  Bronte  obtain  that 
intimate  knowledge  of  love  in  which  she 
surpasses  all  other  novelists.?  How  is  it 
that  she  dwells  almost  exclusively  upon 
the  agony  of  unrequited  affection  ?  What 
was     that     ''irresistible     impulse"    which 

73 


The  Brontes 

drove  her  to  Brussels  the  second  time  ? 
Why  did  she  suffer  such  fearful  distress 
on  parting  finally  with  the  Brussels  Pro- 
fessor? What  was  the  cause  of  the  two 
years  of  utter  gloom  and  despair?  Why 
does  the  figure  of  M.  Heger  haunt  the 
pages  of  all  her  novels  ?  Why  do  her  love 
scenes  almost  invariably  connect  themselves 
with  the  schoolroom  ?  These  and  a  dozen 
other  questions  are  all  answered  by  the 
theory  under  discussion,  and  I  cannot  see 
that  it  is  possible  to  answer  them  in  any 
other  way.  I  do  not  say  this  with  any 
desire  to  convert  others  to  my  view — that 
is  not  my  object.  But  I  think  it  will  be 
admitted  that  the  subject  cannot  be  dis- 
missed as  lightly  as  Mr.  Shorter  supposes. 
On  the  contrary,  there  are  many  of  us  to 
whom  the  quickening  of  the  genius  of 
Charlotte  Bronte  by  a  hidden  tragedy  at 
Brussels  will  seem  a  fact  as  clearly  proved 
as  the  nature  of  the  case  will  admit.  We 
could  not  think  otherwise  if  we  would. 

74 


Fact  and  Fiction 

It  only  remains  now  to  ask,  Must  those 
who  agree  with  Sir  Wemyss  Reid  on  this 
matter  therefore  think  less  highly  of  Char- 
lotte Bronte's  character  ?  To  this  question 
I  reply  by  an  emphatic  negative.  I  main- 
tain that,  if  we  accept  this  sad  chapter  of 
her  life  as  authentic,  more  than  ever  she 
answers  to  Kingsley's  description  of  her 
as  ''a  valiant  woman  made  perfect  by 
suffering." 

He  must  be  a  Pharisee  Indeed  who  can 
fail  to  see  that  Charlotte  was  more  to  be 
pitied  than  blamed  for  the  growth  of  her 
strong  attachment  to  her  teacher.  Owing 
to  her  shyness  and  the  isolation  of  her 
position,  she  had  known  no  man  intimately 
till  she  went  to  Brussels,  save  her  father 
and  brother :  she  had  met  at  Haworth 
only  a  few  of  those  curates  whom  she 
described  as  "  highly  uninteresting,  narrow, 
and  unattractive  specimens  of  the  '  coarser 
sex.'  "  Then  suddenly  her  duty  brought  her 
daily  into  close  association  with  one  whose 

75 


The  Brontes 

personality  was  magnetic,  whose  intellectual 
gifts  had  an  irresistible  attraction  for  such 
a  mind  as  hers,  and  whose  sympathy  was, 
during  long  lonely  months,  her  only  solace 
amid  a  world  of  strangers.  The  ripening 
of  friendship  and  gratitude  into  a  stronger 
feeling  would  be  by  imperceptible  stages, 
and  she  herself  would  not  know  when  that 
line  was  crossed  which  divides  friendship 
from  that  stronger  form  of  attachment 
which  makes  separation  from  its  object 
an  agony.  If  we  call  this  attachment 
''love,"  it  is  for  want  of  a  more  discrim- 
inating word  :  whatever  the  feeling  was, 
it  was  known  in  her  consciousness  only 
as  suffering,  and  was  kept  prisoner  in 
secret  in  the  depths  of  her  own  heart. 
She  was  "martyr  by  the  pang  without 
the  palm."  Even  Miss  Frederika  Mac- 
donald,  who  seems  to  hold  a  brief  for 
Madame  Heger  and  her  daughters,  ac- 
knowledges that  Charlotte's  feeling  for  her 
teacher  "was  not  tainted  nor  disfigured  by 

76 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  shadow  of  any  attempt  or  desire  to 
draw  on  herself  affections  that  were  pledged 
elsewhere."  Under  all  the  circumstances 
it  seems  to  me  that,  like  Jane  Eyre  in 
the  story,  she  was  drawn  into  love  of  her 
"master"  quite  innocently.  If  we  have 
nothing  but  pity  for  Jane  in  the  romance, 
we  can  have  no  harsher  feeling  for  Charlotte 
in  real  life. 

There  may  be  some,   indeed,   who  will 
assume  that  Charlotte  knew  her  own  heart 
by  the  time  she  first  left  Brussels.      These 
may  perhaps  urge  that    to    return  was    a 
highly  censurable  action,  and  that  here  she 
falls  far  short  of  the  heroic  inflexibility  of 
her  own  heroine,  Jane  Eyre.     But  even  if 
we   suppose    that   at   this    time    Charlotte 
knew  the   nature    of  her   own    feelings — 
which   I   am  not  prepared  to   admit — her 
case  and  Jane  Eyre's  are  not  here  parallel. 
Jane,  if  she  had  returned  to  Mr.  Roches- 
ter, would  have  gone  back  to  a  man  who 
loved  her  and  who  was   bent  on  forcing 

77 


The  Brontes 

her  Into  a  wrong  path.  Charlotte,  in 
returning  to  Brussels,  ran  no  such  risks  : 
she  went  with  her  will  fixed  upon  carrying 
out  the  course  she  had  mapped  out,  even 
though  it  involved  the  draining  of  the 
bitter  cup — nine  parts  gall  to  one  of  sweet- 
ness— of  which  she  had  already  tasted. 
She  was  one  of  those  strong  souls  who  can 
walk  with  security  along  the  edges  of 
dizzy  precipices  where  others  would  faint. 
She  knew,  for  she  had  proved  it  in  many 
a  struggle,  that  she  was  mistress  of  her- 
self Even  had  I  to  grant  that  in  re- 
turning to  a  sphere  so  dangerous  to  her 
peace  she  was  guilty  of  a  moral  error,  I 
should  recall  the  path  of  thorns  and  flints 
into  which  that  error  led  her,  and  blame 
would  be  almost  lost  in  admiration  for  the 
Stoic  courage  with  which  she  trod  that 
path. 

For  my  part,  however,  I  do  not  grant 
any  moral  error.  I  think  that  she  did  not 
analyse  at  the  time  the  "  irresistible  im- 

78 


Fact  and  Fiction 

pulse  "  which  took  her  back  to  Brussels  ; 
that  she  did  not  then  understand,  or  but 
half  understood,  her  own  feelings  ;  and 
that  if  she  failed  it  was  only  in  that  self- 
knowledge  in  which  we  all  fail.  I  cannot 
agree,  however,  with  a  recent  writer  who, 
while  expressing  belief  in  the  tragedy  of 
Charlotte's  life,  says  that  probably  ''  never 
in  the  most  secret  and  inward  imagina- 
tions of  her  own  heart  "  did  she  describe 
her  feeling  for  M.  Heger  as  other  than 
friendship.  Charlotte  Bronte  had  not 
that  facile  power  of  self-deception  which 
belongs  to  most  of  us,  and  it  seems 
certain  that,  when  she  wrote  her  novels, 
she  recognised  clearly  the  nature  of  the 
struggle  she  had  come  through.  At  the 
same  time  it  should  be  remembered  that 
''love"  has  probably  as  many  shades  of 
meaning  as  there  are  varieties  of  human 
character,  and  in  Charlotte's  vocabulary  it 
was  expressive  of  all  that  is  pure  and 
noble.     Let  me  recall  the  indignant  words 

79 


The  Brontes 

she  wrote  to   Miss  Martlneau  in   reply  to 
some  unworthy  criticism  :  "I    know  what 
love  is  as  I  understand  it ;  and  if  man  or 
woman  should  be  ashamed  of  feeling  such 
love,  then  is    there    nothing  right,   noble, 
faithful,  truthful,  unselfish  in  this  earth,  as 
I  comprehend  rectitude,  fidelity,  truth  and 
disinterestedness."     True,  it  is  not  allow- 
able   to   cherish    even    such   a   feeling   as 
this  for  one  who  is  another's.     But  there 
can    be    no    doubt   that,    as   soon   as   she 
thoroughly  knew  her  own  heart,  Charlotte 
broke  the  chain  and  fled.     This  involved 
the    same      terrible     struggle     that     she 
describes    in    two    of   her    novels,    and    it 
issued  in   the  same    noble  victory.      The 
Brussels  episode,  as  I  understand  it,  calls 
not    for    the    censure    of    fallible    human 
nature,  but  for  its  respectful  admiration. 

The  flight  from  Brussels  did  not,  as  we 
know,  put  an  end  to  all  intercourse 
between  M.  Heger  and  Charlotte  Bronte. 
For    some    eighteen    months   they   main- 

80 


Fact  and  Fiction 

tained  a  friendly  correspondence,  the  tone 
of  which  can  be  judged  from  the  specimen 
of  it  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  Life.     The  recent 
suggestion  that  Charlotte    expressed  her- 
self with  an   unseemly  warmth,   and   that 
her  Brussels  friends  were  therefore  obliged 
to  restrict  her  to  two  letters  a  year,  which 
should  contain  only   ''a  plain    account    of 
her  circumstances  and  occupations,"  need 
not  be  too  deeply  resented  since   it   has 
called  forth,  in  Mr.   Shorter's  book,  a  true 
account  of  how    the    friendly  intercourse 
ceased.       Madame    Heger,    who    disliked 
Charlotte,    objected    to    any    correspond- 
ence, and  M.  Heger,  unwilling  to  sever  all 
connection  with  his  talented  pupil,  asked 
her  to  address  her  letters  to  a  Boys'  School 
where  he  taught.     It  was  a  very  unwise 
suggestion,  but  not  perhaps  entirely  inex- 
cusable if  we  assume,  as  I  think  we  may, 
that     M.     Heger    had    never    reason    to 
suspect  Charlotte's  secret.     But  his  corre- 
spondent could  give  but  one  reply  to  such 

8i  F 


The  Brontes 

a  request.  ''  I  stopped  writing  at  once," 
she  told  her  friend  Miss  Wheelwright. 
**  I  would  not  have  dreamt  of  writing  to 
him  when  I  found  it  was  disagreeable  to 
his  wife ;  certainly  I  would  not  write 
unknown  to  her."  This  rigid  fidelity  to 
principle  is  what  all  who  know  Charlotte 
Bronte's  character  would  have  expected 
from  her  on  such  an  occasion.  We  may 
be  sure  it  marked  all  her  relations  with  the 
Rogers. 

To  sum  up,  then :  Charlotte  Bronte's 
writings  have  proved  a  palimpsest,  and 
scholars  have  from  time  to  time  hinted 
of  the  older  sentences  they  could  discern 
beneath  the  present  characters.  More 
recently  there  have  been  signs  that  hints 
are  to  be  replaced  by  innuendos,  and  I 
have  therefore  endeavoured  to  restore  the 
whole  of  the  old  text  so  far  as  it  is  still 
decipherable.  It  turns  out  to  be  a  tragedy 
which  for  human  interest  equals  anything 

$2 


Fact  and  Fiction 

in  the  novels,  and  which  cannot  but  render 
those  who  peruse  it  wiser  and  stronger. 
Its  central  figure  is  Charlotte  herself,  as 
noble  and  brave  a  heroine  as  any  which 
her  imagination  created.  We  see  an  acute 
sensitiveness  which  attracts  our  pity, 
wedded  to  a  dauntless  fortitude  which 
compels  our  admiration.  We  see  her  sore 
wounded  in  her  affections,  but  unconquer- 
able in  her  will.  The  discovery  of  the 
secret  of  her  life  does  not  degrade  the 
noble  figure  we  know  so  well ;  it  adds  to 
it  a  pathetic  significance.  The  moral  of 
her  greatest  works — that  conscience  must  | 
reign  absolute  at  whatever  cost — acquires 
a  greater  force  when  we  realise  how  she 
herself  came  through  the  furnace  of  tempta- 
tion with  marks  of  torture  on  her,  but  with 
no  stain  on  her  soul.  And  if  there  are 
passages  in  her  books  by  which  she 
appeals  to  our  deepest  experiences  as 
hardly  any  other  writer  can,  we  know  now 
that    it  was  because  the  pen  with   which 

83 


The  Brontes 

she  wrote  was  dipped  in  her  heart's  blood. 
The  inner  lives  of  few  men  or  women 
have  been  unveiled  to  the  public  gaze  as 
has  that  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  but  few  could 
stand  the  scrutiny  so  well.  Those  who 
are  most  familiar  with  her  history  will  ever 
be  those  most  ready  to  exclaim  with 
Kingsley,  "  She  is  a  whole  heaven  above 
me,"  and  to  endorse  Sir  Wemyss  Reid's 
/  assertion,  "No  apology  need  be  offered 
j  for  any  single  feature  of  Charlotte  Bronte's 
I  life  or  character." 


84 


A  CROP  OF  BRONTE  MYTHS 


I 


A  CROP  OF  BRONTE  MYTHS 

N  1893  Dr>  William  Wright  issued  a 
book*  in  which  he  professed  not  only 
to  trace  the  history  of  four  generations  of 
Irish  Brontes,  but  to  prove  that  the  plot  of 
Wuthering  Heights  was  founded  on  family 
history,  and  that  the  other  Bronte  novels 
had  likewise  an  Irish  origin.  As  a  Bronte 
enthusiast  I  was  naturally  interested ;  but 
when  review  after  review  came  to  hand,  all 
speaking  of  Dr.  Wright's  book  in  laudatory 
terms,  and  declaring  that  he  had  established 
his  thesis,  my  curiosity  died  down,  and  I 
accepted  this  verdict  as  final.  About  two 
years  ago   I  procured  his  volume  for  the 

*  The  Brontes  in  Ireland;  or^  Facts  stranger  than 
Fiction.  By  Dr.  William  Wright.  London:  Hodder 
and  Stoughton. 

87 


The  Brontes 

purpose  of  keeping  my  Bronte  knowledge 
up  to  date.  Imagine  my  surprise  to  find 
it  a  work  neither  consistent  nor  coherent, 
bearing  its  own  refutation  on  every  page 
for  any  reader  who,  with  adequate  know- 
ledge, would  examine  its  statements.  It 
reminded  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  of  that 
prophetical  literature  which  once  under- 
took to  prove  that  Napoleon  III.  was 
Antichrist,  and  which  still  is  prepared  to  fix 
the  date  of  the  end  of  the  world.  There 
was  the  same  absence  of  all  critical  faculty, 
the  same  unreasoning  acceptance  of  every 
alleged  fact  which  could  serve  the  end  in 
view,  the  same  substitution  of  faith  for 
proof  I  could  only  account  for  the  favour- 
able reception  of  the  book  by  supposing 
that  the  reviewers  had  been  too  busy  to  do 
more  than  to  read  it  as  one  would  read  a 
novel.  I  at  once  wrote  an  article  in  the 
Westminster  Review  (October  1895)  point- 
ing out  the  mythical  character  of  the  work  ; 
but  public   interest  in  the  matter  was  for 

88 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  time  spent,  and  though  my  criticism 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  few  Bronte 
specialists  it  eluded  the  notice  of  that  guile- 
less public  which  had  so  warmly  welcomed 
The  Brontes  in  Ireland,  and  Dr.  Wright 
himself  attempted  no  reply  to  my  damaging 
criticism. 

So  matters  remained  till  the  great  revival 
of  interest  in  Bronte  history  which  has 
marked  the  last  few  months.  The  publi- 
cation of  Mr.  Clement  Shorter's  valuable 
work,  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle^ 
however,  then  seemed  to  make  further 
action  desirable.  It  moved  Dr.  Wright  to 
renewed  efforts  to  circulate  his  book,  and  so 
indirectly  promoted  the  spread  of  the  very 
mischief  which  it  was  my  purpose  to  check. 
On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Shorter,  by  ex- 
pressing agreement  with  my  view  of  The 
Brontes  in  Ireland,  and  drawing  attention 
pointedly  to  the  Westminster  article,  com- 
pelled Dr.  Wright  to  break  silence,  and 
thus  has  provided  me  with  new  material 

89 


The  Brontes 

It  is  plainly  desirable,  therefore,  that  the 
matter  should  now  be  brought  to  an  issue, 
and  I  propose  to  analyse  the  work  once 
more  with  a  view  to  proving,  once  and  for 
all,  that  it  can  have  no  serious  significance 
for  Bronte  students.  It  is  not  a  pleasant 
task  to  upset  a  favourable  verdict ;  but,  if 
Dr.  Wright's  theories  are  accepted,  the 
whole  broadening  stream  of  Bronte  biblio- 
graphy will  be  deflected  and  made  turbid. 
In  the  interests,  then,  of  truth,  and  of 
the  Bronte  fame,  the  utterly  untrustworthy 
character  of  the  book  must  be  exposed. 

The  Genealogical  Chart. 

As  a  preparation  for  our  investigation,  I 
shall  give,  with  dates,  a  genealogical  table 
of  the  characters  who  appear  in  Dr. 
Wright's  pages  ;  and  this  is  the  more 
necessary  as  our  author  is  as  confused 
in  his  account  of  the  family  relationship 
as  in  most  else ;  for  example,  on  p.  1 9,  the 

90 


Fact  and  Fiction 


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91 


The  Brontes 

grandfather  of  Hugh  Bronte  II.  Is  called 
his  father,  and  on  p.  49,  Hugh  I.  is  de- 
scribed as  the  great-great-great-grandfather 
of  the  novelists,  where  there  is  a  *'  great " 
too  much.  Once  we  grasp  the  relationships, 
a  mere  comparison  of  dates  will  be  enough 
to  bring  the  whole  story  toppling  down  like 
a  house  of  cards.  For  the  sake  of  greater 
distinctness  I  shall  give  cognomens  to  the 
three  Hughs  in  the  chart.  The  first  I 
shall  call  the  Founder;  Hugh  II.,  the  grand- 
father of  the  novelists,  I  shall  dub  the 
Paragon,^  for  if  Dr.  Wright's  stories  could 
be  accepted  he  would  be  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  peasants  who  ever  lived  ;  for 
the  third  Hugh,  the  uncle  of  the  novelists, 
I  will  retain  the  nickname  of  Dr.  Wright's 
choosing,  viz.,  the  Giant,  though  probably 
"the  Avenger"  would  be  more  appro- 
priate   in  view    of  the    remarkable   story, 

*  I  apply  this  title  not,  of  course,  to  the  real  Hugh  II., 
who  was  doubtless  an  estimable  man,  but  to  the 
imaginary  personage  who  is  the  hero  of  Dr.  Wright's 
romance. 

92 


Fact  and   Fiction 

to  which  I  shall  have  to  direct  attention 
further  on.  I  will  ask  the  reader  then  to 
refer,  when  need  be,  to  the  chart  on  p.  91, 
remembering  always  that  Hugh  II.  is  the 
character  upon  whom  all  else  depends,  the 
hero  of  the  whole  romance. 

Now  it  is  of  great  importance  that  the 
reader  should  convince  himself  that  this 
genealogical  tree  does  truly  represent  the 
alleged  facts  as  set  forth  in  Dr.  Wright's 
book.  The  chart  appeared  originally  in 
the  Westminster  article,  and  when  sixteen 
months  later  Dr.  Wright  attempted  a 
reply,  in  the  Bookman  of  February  1897, 
his  defence  took  the  form  of  denying  the 
validity  of  his  own  dates.  He  writes  as 
follows  : 

''  Hugh  Brontes  [the  Paragon's]  stories 
contained  no  fixed  point  in  chronology. 
.  .  .  The  early  Bronte  house  was  on  the 
banks  of  the  Boyne.  As  a  conjecture  I 
placed  the  date  vaguely  after  the  battle 
which  made  the  river  famous.      It  was  a 

93 


The  Brontes 

mere  approximation.  It  might  have  been 
earlier  or  it  might  have  been  later  ;  most 
likely  later.  I  had  no  chronological  land- 
marks to  guide  me,"  &c. 

Dr.  Wright,  as  we  shall  see,  has  a 
habit  of  thus  shifting  his  ground  as  soon 
as  it  is  seriously  assailed,  but  he  must  not 
suppose  that  ground  so  vacated  is  not  in 
possession  of  the  enemy.  His  credibility 
as  an  historian  must  necessarily  suffer  by 
these  sudden  chancres  of  his  text.  Let  us 
see  what  are  his  own  words  in  his  book  : 
''Shortly  after  the  events  which  in  1688 
rendered  the  Boyne  memorable,  Hugh 
Bronte,  the  elder,  occupied,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  house  and  farm  on  the  banks  of 
that  river.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
he  received  his  possession  for  Imperial  ser- 
vices   rendered  in  those  turbulent  times " 

(p.  156). 

Here  there  is  no  perad venture  about  the 
date,  but  only  as  to  whether  Hugh  I.  had 
received  the  estate  as  the  reward  of  loyalty. 

94 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Hugh  II.,  the  Paragon,  confirms  this  latter 
conjecture ;  he  is  made  to  say  :  **  The 
Brontes  had  occupied  a  piece  of  forfeited 
land,  with  well-defined  obligations  to  a 
chief  or  landlord,"  &c.  ;  and  let  it  be 
remembered  that  upon  the  alleged  stories 
of  Hugh  II.  most  of  the  book  is  founded, 
so  that  if  he  is  not  reliable  the  narrative 
falls  to  pieces.  But  the  chart,  of  course, 
does  not  depend  upon  this  one  date.  On 
p.  i6  Dr.  Wright  says  that  Hugh  II.  was 
taken  from  his  home  by  a  villain  named 
Welsh  ''some  time  about  the  middle  of 
the  last  century  or  a  little  earlier,"  when 
Hugh  II.  was  about  five  years  old.  This 
is  not  a  date  about  which  Hugh  II.  could 
have  been  in  error  to  any  material  extent, 
and  from  this  fixed  date  of  1750  we  can 
work  at  ease  either  backwards  or  forwards. 
It  follows  that  the  Paragon  was  born  circa 
1745.  He  was  a  very  young  member  of  a 
*'  large  "  family,  he  had  ''numerous  brothers 
and   sisters,"    and    therefore    his    father's 

95 


The  Brontes 

marriage  must  have  been  at  least  ten  years 
earlier,  say  1735.  The  father,  from  the 
story,  was  evidently  a  young  unmarried 
man  of  twenty-five  or  so  when  he  settled 
in  the  South  of  Ireland,  so  that,  even 
supposing  him  to  have  been  married 
immediately  after  this,  he  could  not  have 
been  born  later  than  1710.  He,  too, 
belonged  to  a  large  family,  and  allowing 
for  the  time  it  would  take  Hugh  I.,  the 
Founder,  to  accomplish  all  that  the  tale 
tells  us — drain  the  estate,  improve  the 
land,  build  a  fine  house,  grow  rich  by 
cattle-dealing,  and  rear  a  family  to  man- 
hood— undoubtedly  we  do  find  ourselves 
taken  back  to  the  date  of  the  Battle  of  the 
Boyne,  or  shortly  after.  In  a  similar  way, 
starting  from  the  same  date  of  1750,  we 
may  work  downward.  Hugh  stayed  eleven 
years  with  Welsh,  which  brings  us  to  1761. 
He  married  Alice  McClory  in  1776,  and 
the  other  dates  are  from  authentic  records. 
Of  course  7ny  belief  is  that   most   of  the 

96 


Fact  and  Fiction 

events  covered  by  these  dates  are  fictitiouSy 
but  the  dates  are  based  on  the  allegfed  facts 
in  such  a  way  that,  if  the  facts  are  as 
narrated  by  Dr.  Wright,  then  the  chart  is, 
for  the  purposes  of  this  controversy,  un- 
assailable. 


The  Alleged  Originals  of   Wuthering 
Heights. 

Let  us  glance  first  at  the  opening 
chapter  of  the  romance  relating  chiefly 
to  Hugh  I.,  the  Founder,  and  Welsh. 
Hugh  I.  settled  on  his  farm  about  1690, 
and  was  a  cattle-dealer  as  well  as  farmer. 
He  became  rich  and  prosperous.  His 
sons  were  brought  up  in  comparative 
luxury,  were  well  educated  and  had  been 
much  in  England.  Then  one  day  Hugh  I. 
(the  Mr.  Earnshaw  of  Wuthering  Heights^ 
finds  on  a  Liverpool  boat  a  Lascar  baby 
and  adopts  it.    This  boy,  Welsh  (the  Heath- 

97  G 


The  Brontes 

cliffe  of  Wuthering  Heights),  makes  him- 
self very  useful  to  Hugh  I.,  and  gradually 
gets  the  management  of  the  whole  business 
into  his  own  hands.  He  uses  as  tools  a 
hypocrite  named  Gallagher  (the  Joseph  of 
Wuthering  Heights)  and  a  woman,  Meg, 
whose  chief  business  apparently  was  to 
murder  illegitimate  children.  At  last 
Hugh  I.  goes  over  to  Liverpool  with  the 
largest  consignment  of  cattle  he  had  ever 
taken,  and  on  the  way  back  he  dies — 
murdered,  we  are  led  to  suppose,  by 
Welsh.  What  has  become  of  the  money 
received  for  the  cattle  no  one  knows ;  all 
the  business-books  have  disappeared  and 
the  capital  is  in  Welsh's  pocket.  The 
villain  succeeds  after  a  time  in  driving  his 
foster-brothers  out  of  the  farm  to  which 
they  cling,  and,  with  Meg's  help,  he 
compels  Mary,  the  youngest  sister,  to 
marry  him.  So  the  curtain  falls,  with 
Welsh  rich  and  prosperous,  married  to  his 
master's  daughter  and  living  in  the  Brontes' 

98 


Fact  and  Fiction 

ancestral  farm,  while  the  Bronte  sons  are 
beggared  and  homeless. 

Now,  to  begin  with,  it  is  somewhat  start- 
ling to  find  Dr.  Wright  describing  so 
minutely  events  which  happened  nearly 
two  hundred  years  ago,  when  he  has 
nothing  but  oral  tradition  to  rely  upon. 
And  it  becomes  more  than  startling  when 
we  are  told  that  these  events,  known  in 
such  detail  to  Dr.  Wright  and  his  in- 
formants, were  unknown  to  most  of  the 
Irish  Brontes  themselves.  The  fons  et 
origo  of  this  history,  and  of  much  else  to 
follow,  is  alleged  to  be  Hugh  II.,  the 
Paragon,  who  is  represented  as  a  perfect 
genius,  and  who  told  the  story  in  a  most 
graphic  fashion  to  many  persons.  We 
may  be  quite  sure  that  the  persons  most 
interested  in  the  story  would  be  his  ten 
children,  all  of  them  most  remarkable 
characters  according  to  Dr.  Wright,  and 
living  nearly  a  century  nearer  the  alleged 
events  than  we.     One  of  these,  Alice,  lived 

99 


The  Brontes 

to  a  great  age  and  died  in  1890.  If  they 
or  their  children  knew  not  of  this  story  it 
will  appear  to  most  persons  that  it  cannot 
be  true,  and  further,  that  it  cannot  really 
have  originated  with  Hugh  II.  And  even 
on  Dr.  Wright's  own  showing  we  might 
conclude  that  these  narratives  do  not  rest 
on  Bronte  evidence.  These  are  his  own 
words  on  p.  50  : 

"  With  the  exception  of  Alice,  none  of 
the  Irish  Brontes  knew  anything  of  the 
early  history  of  the  family.  I  visited  most 
of  them,  and  the  vague  information  they 
had  to  communicate  was  merely  an  echo 
from  English  biographies.  Even  Alice 
mixed  up  different  events  in  a  way  some- 
times that  made  it  difficult  to  disentangle 
them." 

What  Alice's  evidence  amounted  to  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  see  later  on. 

Further,  the  story  itself  is  surely  in- 
credible.    Even  at  the  beginning  of  last 

century  an  interloper  could  not  murder  his 

100 


Fact  and  Fiction 

foster-father  and  embezzle  the  whole ;.Qf  a *.•{:»•;,  •'.{ 
rich  man's  capital  without  being  criminally- 
prosecuted.  If  Welsh  had  had  to  do  with 
helpless  children  the  improbabilities  would 
have  been  less,  but  he  had  to  do  with  a 
number  of  young  men  "brought  up  in 
comparative  luxury  "  and  ''  well  educated," 
and  when  we  realise  these  circumstances 
the  story  becomes  absurd. 
f  Moreover,  if  Hugh  II.  was  indeed  re- 
sponsible for  this  piece  of  family  history,  it 
will  be  well  to  know  with  what  sort  of  an 
historian  we  are  dealing.  He  tells  us 
repeatedly  (p.  148)  that  his  grandfather, 
Hugh  I.,  was  unjustly  dealt  with  by 
means  of  legal  documents  issued  under 
George  III.'s  authority.  It  will  be  seen 
that  Hugh  I.  would  have  been  over  one 
hundred  years  old  when  George  III. 
ascended  the  throne  in  1760,  and  as  he 
left  a  young  family  behind  him  when  he 
died,  he  must  have  begun  the  begetting  of 
his  numerous  offspring  when  he  was  about 

lOI 


The  Brontes 

eighty  !     Wonderful  men,  truly,  these  Irish 
Brontes ! 

But  it  is  time  we  passed  on  to  the  next 
stage  of  this  romance.  When  the  curtain 
again  rises  ''many  years"  have  elapsed 
(p.  32).  I  calculate  these  years  as  fifteen 
at  the  least ;  nothing  less  will  meet  the 
demands  of  the  history.  Welsh,  whom  we 
left  in  the  possession  of  all  the  fortune  of  a 
"  rich  and  prosperous  "  man,  has  fallen  into 
abject  poverty.  His  foster  brothers  and 
sisters  with  one  exception  have  all  dis- 
appeared for  ever.  But  the  exception,  the 
unnamed  father  of  Hugh  H.,  though  he 
had  not  a  penny  when  we  last  saw  him,  is 
now  "a  man  in  prosperous  circumstances" 
(p.  16).  He  is  married  and  has  a  large 
family,  and  his  children  live  in  luxury 
(pp.  Ill  and  154).  Farming  in  those 
days  appears  to  have  resembled  stock- 
broking  in  these  from  the  rapidity  with 
which  fortunes  were  made  and  lost.  One 
of  the  younger  members  of  this  family  was 

I02 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  famous  Hugh  II.,  the  Paragon,  at  this 
time  aged  five.  Suddenly  appears  on  the 
scene  the  infamous  Welsh,  who  represents 
himself  as  a  rich  but  childless  man  pining 
to  adopt  a  little  boy.  He  succeeds,  of 
course,  in  his  nefarious  scheme  and  carries 
off  little  Hugh  II.,  having  first  exchanged 
a  melodramatic  oath  with  the  father — 
Welsh  and  his  wife  swearing  that  they 
will  never  let  Hugh  II.  know  where  his 
family  live,  and  the  little  boy's  father 
swearing  that  he  will  never  inquire  about 
him.  Then  they  drive  off,  and  before  the 
lights  of  home  have  disappeared  Welsh 
begins  to  beat  the  child  brutally.  Then 
follow  eleven  years  of  the  most  cruel 
oppression,  and  at  last,  when  aged  six- 
teen, Hugh  II.  runs  away  and  begins  life 
for  himself  He  never  succeeds,  however, 
in  discovering  any  trace  of  his  father  or  his 
family. 

r'    Surely  nothing  but  the   improbabilities 
•  are  necessary  to  expose  the  falsity  of  this 

103 


The  Brontes 

so-called  history.  Hugh  II.'s  father,  in 
common  with  all  the  family,  knew  Welsh 
to  be  an  unmitigated  scoundrel  of  the 
deepest  dye  ;  why  then  should  he  and  his 
wife  give  up  to  him  a  son  to  whom  they 
were  tenderly  attached  ?  The  plea  of 
poverty  does  not  come  In,  for  they  were 
rich  and  prosperous.  Again,  what  possible 
object  could  Welsh,  too  poor  to  support 
himself,  have  in  burdening  himself  with  a 
little  child  ?  Later  on  It  Is  stated  that 
he  was  promised  ;^50  with  the  child, 
which  he  did  not  receive.  But  Welsh,  in 
his  feigned  character  of  a  rich  man,  could 
not  have  asked  for  money,  and  If  he  had, 
that  at  least  would  have  opened  the  father's 
eyes  to  his  real  motives.  Again,  how  are 
we  to  suppose  that  his  wife,  the  excellent 
Mary,  could  have  lent  herself  to  the  dia- 
bolical scheme  ?  And  the  way  in  which 
the  story  is  told  is  at  least  as  ridiculous  as 
the  plot.  The  child,  If  he  had  been  Prince 
Alexander  of  Battenberg,  could  not  have 

104 


Fact  and  Fiction 

been  carried  off  with  greater  precautions 
against  recovery  :  they  travelled  only  by 
night,  and  slept  during  the  day,  and  for 
four  nights  the  journey  was  continued.  In 
Chapter  VI.  we  have  a  minutely  detailed 
account  of  all  that  happened  during  that 
fearful  journey,  and  a  highly  coloured  de- 
scription of  the  scenery.  Interspersed  with 
metaphysical  reflections,  and  all  based  on 
the  recollections  of  a  child  of  five  !  With 
a  remarkable  want  of  humour  the  story 
makes  Welsh  address  this  Infant  at  the 
journey's  end  thus :  "  This  Is  the  only 
home  you  shall  ever  know,  and  you  are 
beholden  to  me  for  It.  No  airs  here,  my 
fine  fellow  !  Your  father  was  glad  to  be  rid 
of  you,  and  this  Is  the  gratitude  you  show 
me  for  taking  you  to  be  my  heir.  Go  to 
bed  out  of  my  way,  and  I'll  find  you  some- 
thing to  do  in  the  morning  to  keep  you 
from  becoming  too  great  for  the  position." 
To  complete  the  absurdity  of  the  story, 
Welsh  becomes  a  father  for  the  first  time 

105 


The  Brontes 

the  year  before  Hugh  runs  away,  or  about 
thirty  years  after  his  marriage  with  Mary ! 
Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  alleged 
history  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  that  the 
scenes  where  these  too  earlier  parts  of  the 
drama  were  enacted — like  nearly  all  the 
other  evidence — are  lost.  As  to  the  house 
and  farm,  probably  given  in  return  for 
services  during  the  political  troubles  of 
William  III.'s  reign,  Dr.  Wright  fears 
**  that  the  tradition  has  now  faded  out  of  the 
district."  He  says  that  this  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at,  since  few  families  of  the  rank  of  the 
Brontes  can  trace  pedigrees  to  the  sixth  or 
seventh  generation.  But  this  excuse  will 
not  do.  Alice,  as  we  have  seen,  lived  till 
1890,  and  her  grandfather  is  alleged  to 
have  dwelt  on  the  ancestral  farm  till  he 
was  a  young  man  of  twenty-five  or  so  ; 
moreover,  her  father,  Hugh  H.,  had  lived 
In  the  immediate  neighbourhood  from  his 
fifth  till  his  sixteenth  year.     Alice,  indeed, 

is  quoted  to  the  effect  that  an  Aunt  Mary, 

106 


Fact  and  Fiction 

who  visited  her  when  a  child,  then  still 
lived  near  Drogheda  on  the  Boyne,  and 
Dr.  Wright  would  have  us  believe  that  this 
was  no  other  than  Mrs.  Welsh.  But  when 
we  examine  the  evidence  it  is  of  a  piece 
with  all  the  rest,  and  is  indeed  not  a 
little  ludicrous.  A  reference  to  our  genea- 
logical table  will  show  that  I  have  put 
Mary  Welsh's  birth  at  1715.  That  it 
could  not  be  later  than  that,  supposing 
the  history  a  true  one,  I  will  now  show 
beyond  all  reasonable  doubt.  Hugh  II. 
was  taken  off  by  Welsh,  says  Dr.  Wright, 
about  the  year  1750  (p.  16).  Welsh  had 
then  been  married  "many  years"  (p.  32), 
and  as  I  have  already  shown,  fifteen  years 
at  least  must  be  allow^ed  for  the  events 
which  intervene.  This  gives  us  1735 
as  the  year  when  Welsh  married  Mary. 
As  he  had  tried  for  some  years  in  vain 
to  make  her  marry  him,  we  cannot  be  far 
wrong  in  supposing  her  to  be  twenty  at 

least  in   1735,  and  if  so  she  cannot  have 

107 


The  Brontes 

been  born  later  than  17 15.  Now  old  Alice 
Bronte,  who  was  born  in  1800,  said  she 
remembered  her  Aunt  Mary  coming  from 
Drogheda  to  visit  her  when  a  child.  Even 
supposing  Alice  to  have  been  then  only- 
five  years  old,  Aunt  Mary  must  have  been 
about  ninety.  How  then  did  old  Alice 
describe  this  nonogenarian  ?  "Tarrible 
purty  she  was.  A  shop-keeper  in  Rath- 
friland  courted  her.  .  .  .  After  she  went 
home  he  sent  after  her  but  she  would  not 
take  him  / "  "^  Dr.  Wright  in  his  book  sug- 
gests Alice  may  have  alluded  to  a  daughter 
of  Aunt  Mary's,  but  though  he  was  in 
correspondence  with  Alice  Bronte  "directly 
and  indirectly  till  her  death,"  she  made  no 
such  admission.  Besides,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  Mary  could  scarcely  have  had 
a  daughter  after  being  childless  for  thirty 
years.  Clearly  it  can  be  proved  from  the 
book  itself  that  the  visit  of  this  Aunt  Mary, 
Mrs.  Welsh,  is  apocryphal. 

The    italics    here    and    throughout     are    mine. — 
A.  M.  M. 

108 


Fact  and  Fiction 

But,  as  I  have  already  warned  the  reader, 
Dr.  Wright,  when  convicted  of  an  absurdity, 
promptly  shifts  his  ground.  He  has  done 
so  in  this  case  ;  but  I  shall  now  show  that 
this  manoeuvre  does  not  enable  him  to 
escape  from  the  horns  of  the  dilemma.  After 
the  absurdity  of  the  story  was  brought  to 
his  notice,  Dr.  Wright  defended  himself 
thus  in  the  Bookman  of  February  1897  • 

''  I  followed  the  tradition  that  the  lady 
was  Hugh's  Aunt  Mary,  but  Alice  assured 
Mr.  Lusk"^  that  she  was  Hugh's  sister,  and 
Miss  Shannon  t  is  of  the  same  opinion. 
Possibly  she  may  have  been  a  younger 
sister  of  Hugh's,  who  may  have  been  stay- 
ing at  Drogheda  with  Aunt  Mary  after  the 
tragic  death  of  Welsh." 

In  the  first  place,  I  must  submit  that 
a  statement  given  at  first  hand  is  not  a 
''  tradition,"  and  the  story  of  Mrs.  Welsh's 

*  Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk,  who  visited  Alice  Bronte  on  her 
deathbed,  and  took  down  her  account  of  the  family, 
t  Great-grand-daughter  of  Hugh  II.,  the  Paragon. 

109 


The  Brontes 

visit  is  told  three  times  in  the  book, 
and  the  authority  for  it  is  twice  given 
as  Alice  Bronte,  who  "distinctly  remem- 
bered it"  (pp.  50  and  158).  Now  Dr. 
Wright,  as  we  have  seen,  corresponded 
with  old  Alice  to  the  last.  On  a  matter  of 
such  importance  could  he  have  been  de- 
ceived ?  I  will  show  that  he  cannot  have 
been.  On  p.  34,  alluding  to  the  solemn 
oath  Mary  Welsh  took  never  to  reveal  the 
situation  of  the  home  from  which  Hugh  II. 
had  been  taken,  Dr.  Wright  says  : 

"  The  Bronte  covenant  was  faithfully 
kept,  and  even  when  Mary  (Welsh)  visited 
Hugh  in  County  Down  some  time  about  the 
beginning  of  this  century  she  could  neither 
be  coaxed  nor  compelled  to  give  him  either 
directly  or  indirectly  a  clue  or  hint  by  which 
he  might  discover  the  home  of  his  childhood^ 

Is  that  statement  true  ?  If  it  is,  why 
does  Dr.  Wright  now  hint  that  it  was  not 
Mary  Welsh  at  all  who  paid  the  visit,  but  a 
sister  of  Hugh  II.'s,  who  could  have  had  no 

no 


Fact  and  Fiction 

reason  to  keep  from  him  the  site  of  his  old 
home  ?  If  it  is  not  true,  Dr.  Wright  owes 
it  to  himself  to  let  us  know  who  invented 
this  misstatement.  The  truth  is,  the  story  is 
damaged  beyond  rehabilitation.  It  is  clear 
that  there  is  no  Bronte  evidence,  and 
nothing  beyond  late  and  loose  tradition,  to 
show  that  the  Drogheda  farm  and  house 
"  probably  given  for  imperial  services"  ever 
existed. 

Again,  as  regards  the  house  of  Hugh  II. 's 
father  "  in  the  South  of  Ireland,"  there  is 
the  same  absence  of  all  evidence.  Dr. 
Wright,  when  a  young  man,  once  spent 
two  months,  ''  disguised  as  a  peasant," 
trying  to  find  some  trace  of  it,  but  in  vain. 
One  is  not  surprised  at  this  after  the  lapse 
of  more  than  a  century,  but  how  are  we  to 
account  for  the  fact  that  Alice  Bronte, 
Hugh  the  Paragon's  youngest  daughter, 
was  not  apparently  aware  of  the  existence 
of  this  house?      In    the    narrative   taken 

III 


The  Brontes 

down  by  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk — one  of  the 
few  documents  quoted  by  Dr.  Wright — 
Alice  declares  that  her  father  ''  came  origi- 
nally from  Drogheda,"  on  the  Boyne.  This 
ignorance  of  the  Bronte  relatives  about  the 
house  ''in  the  South  of  Ireland"  is  even 
more  difficult  to  account  for  than  the  loss 
of  all  trace  of  the  ancestral  farm  near 
Drogheda. 

However,  since  Dr.  Wright's  book  ap- 
peared, a  great  discovery  has  been  made. 
The  real  home,  so  we  are  assured,  has 
been  identified.  The  manner  of  its  dis- 
covery is  so  amusing  and  so  characteristic 
of  the  methods  by  which  the  "  facts "  of 
this  extraordinary  book  have  been  com- 
piled, that  I  shall  briefly  allude  to  it.^  A 
gentleman  from  that  part  of  Ireland  where 
the  Bronte  myths  originated,  viz.,  County 
Down,  heard  that  a  ferryman  on  Lough 
Erne,  Frank  Prunty  by  name,  said  that  he 

*  The  narrative  will  be  found  in  the  Bookman,  Feb- 
ruary 1897. 

112 


Fact  and  Fiction 

was  related  to  the  Brontes.  This  enthu- 
siastic gentleman  secured  a  photographer 
and  a  camera,  and  at  once  set  out  to  in- 
vestigate the  matter — for  might  not  this 
be  a  representative  of  the  long-lost  family 
upon  whom  the  curtain  fell  in  1750?  He 
found  that  the  ferryman  had  heard  of  the 
existence  of  the  County  Down  Brontes, 
and  no  doubt  tourists  had  from  time  to 
time  spoken  to  him  of  the  supposed 
identity  of  the  names  Prunty  and  Bronte. 
Asked  about  his  ancestry,  he  said  :  ''  My 
father  was  a  native  of  these  parts,  but 
my  grandfather  or  my  great-grandfather 
came  from  somewhere  about  Galway." 
This  must  have  been  a  damper !  The 
Bronte  who  was  "wanted"  was  one  whose 
ancestors  had  been  driven  by  Welsh  out 
of  the  ancestral  home  near  Drogheda  on 
the  Boyne.  However,  after  an  afternoon 
spent  in  conversation  and  taking  views  of 
Mr.  Prunty  and  his  home,  the  gentleman 
happened    to   mention  Drogheda    in  con- 

113  H 


The  Brontes 

nection  with  the  Brontes  ;  thereupon  the 
ferryman  seems  to  have  pricked  up  his 
ears,  and  declared  that  he  had  made  a 
mistake.  He  had  meant  to  say  that  his 
ancestor  came  not  from  Gailway  but  from 
Drogheda  ;  he  had  confused  the  names  ! 

This  is  the  story  as  told  in  the  Bookman. 
But  in  contradiction  to  this  is  the  account 
of  another  gentleman,  quoted  in  the  third 
edition  of  The  Brontes  in  Ireland^  who, 
having  interviewed  Frank  Prunty,  reports, 
**  He  knew  nothing  of  the  family  beyond 
his  grandfather.  ...  He  had  no  idea  of 
what  part  of  the  country  his  grandfather 
had  come  from " !  In  this  third  edition 
Dr.  Wright  is  quite  certain  that  it  was 
Frank's  grandfather  who  founded  the 
"South  of  Ireland"  home,  and  so  here 
we  have  another  of  those  laughable  con- 
sequences in  which  this  book  abounds. 
Frank  Prunty's  father  was,  according  to 
both  the  accounts,  born  in  1 803  ;  and  if  the 
reader  will  consult  the  genealogical  table, 

114 


Fact  and  Fiction 

on  page  91  he  will  find  that  on  Dr. 
Wright's  theory  he  was  a  brother  of 
Hugh  II.  the  Paragon.  Now  Hugh,  who 
was  a  younger  member  of  a  large  family, 
was  born,  we  are  told  explicitly,  about  the 
year  1745.  So  that  the  wonderful  Bronte 
who  first  settled  in  the  South  of  Ireland — 
the  great-grandfather  of  the  novelist — had 
a  large  family  by  1745,  and  then  went  on 
begetting  children  for  nearly  sixty  years  j^ 
longer  I  This  is  the  conclusion  to  which 
Dr.  Wright's  contentions  lead  us,  and  there 
is  no  escape  from  it. 

The  Frank  Prunty  story  is  indeed  at 
every  point  irreconcilable  with  Dr.  Wright's 
book.  Hugh  II.  had  always  described 
the  lost  home  as  ''in  the  South  of  Ire- 
land." Loupfh  Erne  is  in  the  north-east. 
Dr.  Wright  tells  us,  with  particularity,  that 
there  were  three  brothers  scattered  from 
the  ancestral  home  by  the  Boyne  ;  but 
Frank  Prunty  says  "  there  w^ere  two 
brothers    of    them,  but    only    my   great- 

115 


The  Brontes 

grandfather  came  down  here."  Further, 
he  says  the  other  brother  "went  off  to- 
wards Belfast,  Newry,  or  somewhere  in 
that  direction,  but  my  father  never  knew 
any  of  that  branch."  No  doubt  he  or 
his  father  founded  this  last  conjecture  on 
their  knowledge  that  there  were  Brontes 
settled  in  County  Down  ;  but  these  were, 
of  course,  the  novelists'  aunts  and  uncles 
and  their  descendants,  well  known  to  Dr. 
Wright  and  his  informants,  and  not  mem- 
bers of  the  missing  family.  The  reader 
shall  judge  for  himself  whether  it  is  now  a 
settled  fact  that  Frank  Prunty  is  a  descen- 
dant of  Hugh  II.'s  father,  who  was  last 
heard  of  in  1750,  and  he  must  form  his 
own  conclusion  as  to  the  credibility  of  a 
witness  who  does  not  know  whether  it  was 
his  grandfather  or  his  great-grandfather 
who  first  settled  at  Lough  Erne  ;  who  con- 
fuses Galway  with  Drogheda  ;  and  who  yet 
can  say  not  only  at  which  part  of  the  road 
two  brothers  parted  in  1735,  viz.,   ''some- 

n6 


Fact  and  Fiction 

where  about  Castle  Sanderson,"  but  can 
tell  in  what  direction  his  ofreat-orreat-uncle 
then  went  off!  But  Dr.  Wright,  of  course, 
has  no  doubts.  He  speaks  of  his  friend's 
visit  to  Lough  Erne  as  ''  the  identification 
of  a  vigorous  descendant  of  the  dispersed 
Brontes,"  and  he  adds  :  "  I  think  that  most 
people  capable  of  weighing  evidence  will 
be  satisfied  that  at  last  the  early  home  of 
Hugh  Bronte  has  been  discovered,  aitd 
the  leading  facts  in  his  stories  confirmed  !'' 
Before  leaving  this  part  of  my  subject 
it  only  remains  to  summarise  the  evidence 
of  members  of  the  Bronte  family  living  or 
recently  living.  When  I  attacked  the 
book  in  1895  ^  ^^^  ^"^Y  the  author's  own 
statements  to  go  upon,  but  my  criticisms 
and  those  of  Mr.  Shorter  have  elicited 
external  testimony  which  confirms  the 
results  at  which  I  had  arrived  in  every 
particular.  When  we  have  this  before  us 
we  shall  not  only  be  convinced  that  the 
earlier  stories  are  inventions,  but  we  shall 

117 


The  Brontes 

find  ourselves  wondering  where  Dr.  Wil- 
liam Wright  could  have  obtained  his 
information,  and  how  he  could  have  per- 
suaded himself  to  believe  them  and  to 
publish  them. 

In  the  first  place,  the  truth  about  Alice's 
testimony  is  now  being  extracted  piece- 
meal. Even  in  his  book  Dr.  Wright 
incautiously  quotes  Alice  as  saying  :  "  My 
father  came  originally  from  Drogheda " 
(p.  157).  In  the  Sketch  of  March  10, 
1897,  we  have  her  story  in  the  oblique 
narration  as  reported  by  the  Rev.  J.  B. 
Lusk :  "Her  father  Hughey  came  from 
Drogheda.  When  he  was  eight  years 
of  aee  an  uncle  took  him  from  his 
father's  place,  intending  to  make  him  his 
heir  as  he  had  no  children.  But  after 
he  went  to  his  uncle's  his  aunt  had  a 
child.  Her  father  then  left  his  uncle 
and  came  to  Erndale  (County  Down), 
and  never  saw  either  his  mother  or  uncle 

again." 

118 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Here  we  have  a  plain  unvarnished  tale 
with  no  gleam  of  romance  about  it.  There 
is  no  word  about  a  home  in  the  South  of 
Ireland,  about  an  abduction,  about  the 
brutality  of  Welsh,  or  any  of  the  strange 
things  in  Dr.  Wright's  story.  We  have 
already  seen  that  Dr.  Wright  himself — 
in  contradiction  to  all  that  he  asserts  in  his 
book — is  now  inclined  to  own  that  Alice 
never  said  anything  about  Mary  Welsh, 
the  villain's  wife,  visiting  Hugh  H.,  but 
that  the  visitor  was  Hugh's  sister  ;  so  that 
evidently  Alice  had  never  even  heard  of  the 
lost  family  and  the  lost  homestead.  Plainly 
she  thought  that  her  father  was  a  peasant 
who  had  emigrated  from  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Drogheda  on  the  Boyne,  and  had 
peasant  relatives  there. 

We  have  now  also  the  evidence  of  Mrs. 
Heslip  to  go  upon.^  This  relative  of 
the  Brontes  has  been  recently  discovered 
at   Oakenshaw,    near    Bradford.      At   the 

*  See  Sketch,  February  lo,  1897. 
119 


The  Brontes 

time  when  his  book  was  appearing  in 
the  pages  of  McClures  Magazine  her 
existence  was  unknown  to  Dr.  Wright, 
and  indeed  to  every  other  Bronte  student. 
Mrs.  Heslip  is  a  daughter  of  Sarah,  the 
only  one  of  the  noveHsts'  aunts  who  mar- 
ried. She  is  thus  a  granddaughter  of  the 
Paragon,  and  she  Hved  among  her  uncles 
and  aunts  till  her  seventeenth  year.  Her 
testimony  must  of  necessity  outweigh  that 
of  Dr.  William  Wright.  She  says  of  the 
earlier  stories  in  his  book  that  she  must 
have  heard  of  them  if  they  had  been  true 
— which  is  obvious — and  that  she  entirely 
discredits  the  whole  of  them. 

To  these  I  can  now  add  the  testimony 
of  Miss  Maggie  Shannon,  of  Ballynas- 
keagh,  who  may  be  taken  to  represent 
all  the  County  Down  Brontes.  Miss 
Shannon  is  the  granddaughter  of  Welsh 
Bronte,"^  the  fourth   brother  of  the   Rev. 

*  We  are  left  to  suppose  that  this  Welsh  was  named 
after  the  villain  of  an  earlier  generation — an  improbable 

1 20 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Patrick  Bronte.  Her  mother  during  her 
unmarried  Hfe  Hved  next  door  to  the 
home  of  Hugh  H.  and  his  sons,  and  after 
her  marriage  lived  only  a  mile  away,  and 
saw  them  almost  daily.  She  thus  had 
complete  knowledge,  and  her  knowledge 
descends  to  her  daughter,  who  has  never 
left  the  neighbourhood.  She  writes  me  as 
follows  : 

''  We  never  heard  the  story  of  little 
Hugh  Bronte's  abduction  nor  of  any  one 
of  the  name  of  Welsh  connected  with  him. 
Hugh  Bronte  [H.]  was  an  only  son  and 
had  just  one  sister,  and  they  were  living 
with  an  uncle,  a  brother  of  their  mother's, 
in  Drogheda,  both  parents  being  dead. 
Hugh  afterwards  came  down  to  the  neigh- 
story  on  the  face  of  it.  Miss  Shannon,  however,  tells 
me  that  her  grandfather,  Welsh,  was  named  after  a 
clergyman  in  their  neighbourhood.  We  must,  therefore, 
reverse  the  supposition,  and  believe  that  Dr.  Wright's 
melodramatic  villain  was  named  after  Miss  Shannon's 
grandfather  by  the  individual — whoever  he  was — who 
invented  the  myth. 

12? 


The  Brontes 

bourhood  of  Hilltown  to  some  relatives  of 
his  mother.  ...  His  sister  visited  him 
once  after  his  marriage." 

Finally,  there  is  the  very  important 
evidence  of  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Nicholls,  the 
husband  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  who  still 
survives.  He  lived  at  the  parsonage 
alone  with  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  for  six 
years.  His  father-in-law,  we  are  told,  was 
by  no  means  disposed  to  reticence,  yet  he 
"  never  heard  one  single  word  about  the 
stories,"  and  believes  them  to  be  "  purely 
legendary."^ 

From  these  witnesses  it  becomes  clear  that 
not  only  i\lice,  Sarah,  Welsh  and  Patrick, 
but  all  the  other  sons  and  daughters  of 
Hugh  n.,  were  ignorant  of  the  romantic 
incidents  narrated  by  Dr.  Wright.  Yet 
Dr.  Wright  asks  us  to  believe  that  Hugh  1 1, 
was  constantly  narrating  them.  He  says 
of  the  account  of  the  abduction,  which 
occupies  sixteen  pages  of  his  book,   that 

*  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle^  p.  158. 

122 


Fact  and  Fiction 

he  received*  it  from  four  different  nar- 
rators, and  that  all  agreed  on  the  main 
incidents  (p.  46),  and  he  states  in  the 
Bookman  (February  1897)  t^3,t  he  ''knew 
Hug/ts  minute  narrative  by  hearth  Can 
any  one  reconcile  these  two  sets  of  facts  ? 
I  confess  I  cannot.  It  is  clear  that  the 
stories  are  untrue ;  and  it  seems  now 
equally  certain  that  it  was  not  Hugh  II.  who 
propagated  them.  Who  then  was  it  that 
hoaxed  the  four  narrators  ?  I  fear  we  must 
leave  the  problem  as  quite  unsolvable.^ 

I  have  now  concluded  the  examination 
of  that  part  of  Dr.  Wright's  story  which 
he  alleges  forms  the  groundwork  of  Wuther- 
ing  Heights,     Since  its  manifold  absurdi- 

*  Dr.  Wright  is  now  inclined  to  make  much  of  a  letter 
received  in  1894  from  a  Mr.  John  Bronte,  in  New 
Zealand,  a  grand-nephew  of  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte. 
It  confirms  some  details  about  the  novelists'  uncles 
which  are  not  in  dispute,  but  it  says  nothing  about  the 
older  stories  of  which  we  may  be  sure  this  Mr.  John 
Bronte  never  heard.  He  says  the  only  point  to  which 
he  can  take  exception  is  the  application  of  the  term 

123 


The  Brontes 

ties  were  exposed  in  the  Westminster,  the 
author  has  drawn  a  careful  distinction 
between  two  parts  of  his  book  ;  what  goes 
before  Hugh  II.'s  flight  from  Welsh,  he 
says,  is  traditional,  what  follows  is  his- 
torical. I  am  afraid  this  is  somewhat  of 
an  afterthought.  Traditional,  of  course, 
much  of  the  book  is  in  the  sense  that 
it  has  been  orally  transmitted,  but  Dr. 
Wright  certainly  intended  us  to  accept  it 
as  quite  trustworthy  in  all  material  points. 
The  sub- title  of  his  volume  is  "  Facts 
Stranger  than  Fiction";  in  the  chapter  on 
the  sources  of  his  information  he  calls  the 
narrative  ''history"  (p.  14),  and  at  the 
beginning  of  his  book  he  says  :   "  I  do  not 

Shthun  to  a  lawful  grocery  business  kept  by  his  great- 
uncle,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  he  is  prepared  to 
endorse  all  the  rest.  He  adds  also  :  "  Of  one  thing  I 
am  certain  ;  you  have  given  to  the  world  the  last  word 
on  the  history  of  the  Brontes  in  the  British  Isles ;  "  and 
in  a  sense  this  is  true,  for  the  biographical  facts  about 
the  novelists'  uncles  and  aunts  which  we  owe  to  the 
Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk  are  probably  all  we  shall  ever  know. 
(For  this  letter,  see  Bookman,  March  1897.) 

124 


Fact  and  Fiction 

even  now  pretend  to  have  reached  absolute 
accuracy  on  every  point  referred  to  In  the 
following  pages,  but  the  statements  are  as 
close  approximation  to  fact  as  they  can  be 
made   by   patient   industry"  (p.    13).     To 
his  critics,  however,  it  is  not  of  the  least 
importance  whether    he    calls    the    earlier 
chapters    history    or    tradition  ;    the    only 
question  is,  are  they  true?     If  not,   they 
have  no  interest  for  Bronte  students.      I 
think  I  have  shown  that  they   are   alike 
inconsistent    and    incredible ;    and    there 
fore     the     assertion     that    early     Bronte 
history  is  the  basis  of  Wuthering  Heights 
falls  to  the  ground.     I   proceed,  however, 
to  examine  those  parts  of  the  book  which 
Dr.  Wright  declares  to  be  history  and  to 
involve  "  practical  certainty,"  and  we  shall 
soon  discover  that  most  of  the  history  is 
as  mythical  as  the  tradition ;  nay,  that  the 
nearer  the  story  approaches  our  own  time 
the  more  clearly  it  can  be  shown  to  have 
no  foundation  in  fact. 

125 


The  Brontes 


Hugh  II.  (the  Paragon). 

As  the  story  of  Hugh  the  Paragon  is 
the  nucleus  of  the  whole  book,  and  as  he 
is  the  alleged  authority  for  most  of  the 
startling  facts  with  which  it  abounds,  it  will 
be  well  to  realise  what  manner  of  person 
he  was.  Let  me  first  quote  the  un- 
doubtedly genuine  record  of  him  from  the 
lips  of  his  daughter  Alice  as  taken  down 
by  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk:  *' My  father 
came  originally  from  Drogheda.  He  was 
not  very  tall  but  purty  stout ;  he  was 
sandy-haired  and  my  mother  fair-haired. 
He  was  very  fond  of  his  children,  and 
worked  to  the  last  for  them."  Dr. 
Wright's  account  is  a  rather  more  highly 
coloured  description.  Hugh  II.  was  hand- 
some in  person  and  powerful  in  build,  but 
his  physical  gifts  were  as  nothing  compared 
with    his    mental    endowments.       He  was 

apparently  in  the  very  first  rank  of  great 

126 


Fact  and  Fiction 

speakers.  **  Mr.  Mc  Allister  had  heard 
most  of  the  orators  of  his  time,  including 
O'Connell  and  Cooke  and  Chalmers,  but 
no  man  ever  touched  or  roused  and  thrilled 
by  the  force  of  eloquence  as  old  Hugh 
Bronte  did  "  (p.  47).  In  force  of  imagination 
he  surpassed  the  girls  who  made  his  name 
famous — indeed  their  novels  were  only  his 
own  stories  in  an  inferior  dress  :  ''It  may 
be  questioned  if  any  tale  ever  told  by 
Hugh  Bronte's  granddaughters  equalled 
those  which  he  narrated  in  wealth  of 
imagination  or  picturesque  eloquence  or 
intensity  of  human  feeling  or  vividness  of 
colouring  or  immediate  effect"  (p.  47). 
Only  opportunity  was  wanting  to  make  him 
a  great  politician  :  ''  Under  different  circum- 
stances he  might  have  been  an  advanced 
statesman,  and  saved  his  country  from 
unutterable  woe"  (p.  134).  Such  was  the 
remarkable  person  from  whom  Dr.  Wright 
indirectly  derived  most  of  the  material 
from  which  his  book  is  constructed. 

127 


The  Brontes 

When  we  resume  this  hero's  history  at 
Mount  Pleasant,  whither  at  the  age  of  six- 
teen he  had  fled  from  the  tyrant  Welsh,  we 
find  still  much  to  marvel  at.  Whileserving  at 
a  lime-kiln  he  falls  in  love  with  the  sister 
of  a  young  man  evidently  of  his  own  class. 
Difficulties  arising  on  the  part  of  the  lady's 
Roman  Catholic  relations,  he  leaves  the 
kiln  and  secretly  takes  service  in  her  neigh- 
bourhood as  a  farm  servant ;  and  then  we 
hear  that  this  peasant  girl  "  was  permitted 
to  ride  about  the  neighbourhood  quite 
alone.  She  enjoyed  horse  exercise  greatly," 
and  she  always  rides  "her  own  mare." 
She  is,  in  fact,  suddenly  transformed  into  a 
squire's  daughter.  But  to  read  Dr.  Wright's 
book  is  like  being  in  a  dream,  nothing 
surprises.  Hugh  II.  at  last  secures  her,  of 
course  in  the  most  romantic  way  and  under 
the  most  extraordinary  circumstances, 
eloping  with  her  on  the  morning  when 
she  was  to  have  been  married  to  a  rival  ; 

and  Dr.  Wright  is  able  to  tell  us  exactly 

128 


Fact  and  Fiction 

what  had  been  prepared  for  that  wedding 
breakfast  In  1776 — it  has  been  handed  down 
orally  for  a  century  and  a  quarter — viz.,  a 
great  pudding  of  flour  and  potatoes,  two 
large  turkeys  In  melted  butter,  and  a 
huge  roast  of  beef,  &c.  Having  thus 
secured  as  a  wife  one  who  was  "probably 
the  prettiest  girl  In  County  Down  at  the 
time,"  the  Paragon  settles  In  that  henceforth 
classic  region,  and  In  a  small  way  prospers 
more  and  more  as  time  rolls  on  !  ^ 

We  must  not  suppose,  however,  that 
Hugh  H.  became  as  other  men,  and  that 
the  world  Is  to  regard  him  merely  as  the 
grandfather  of  Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte. 
Dr.  Wright  claims  for  him  that  he  was  the 
author  of  the  modern  theory  of  tenant-right. 

*  The  story  of  the  runaway  match  is  as  mythical  as  the 
rest.  Mrs.  Heslip  herself  remembers  her  grandmother, 
AUce  McClory,  but  "  she  never  heard  of  any  runaway 
marriage,  such  as  described  by  Dr.  W^right,  which  would 
have  surely  been  a  family  tradition  if  it  had  taken 
place."  I  have  a  letter,  too,  from  Miss  Shannon,  which 
shows  that  no  rumour  of  such  a  thing  has  ever  reached 
the  County  Down  Brontes. 

129  I 


The  Brontes 

He  makes  much  of  this  claim,  and  fore- 
shadows it  early  in  his  book.  In  describing 
the  eviction  of  Hugh  I.'s  family  by  Welsh, 
which  must  have  taken  place  about  the 
year  1730,  or  fifteen  years  before  the 
birth  of  Hugh  H.,  he  says  :  "This  sordid 
transaction  was  fraught  with  far-reaching 
consequences  to  landlordism.  It  gave 
birth  to  a  tenant-right  theory  of  which  we 
shall  hear  something  in  a  subsequent  chap- 
ter." Subsequent  chapters  inform  us  that 
Hugh  II.  derived  from  this  eviction  his 
views  upon  the  land  question,  and  that 
with  these  views  he  revolutionised  Ireland. 
Some  years  after  his  flight  from  Welsh, 
he  became,  we  are  told,  farm  labourer  to  a 
country  gentleman  named  Harshaw.  The 
children  of  this  country  gentleman  con- 
ceived a  liking  for  Hugh  II.,  now  a  grown 
man,  and  taught  him  to  read,  as  Catherine 
taught  Hareton  Earnshaw  in  Withering 
Heights — an  interesting  fact  if  it  can  be 

established,    but  no  proof  is    vouchsafed. 

130 


Fact  and  Fiction 

The  chain  of  evidence  is  then  continued  in 
the  following  extraordinary  fashion.  Jane 
Harshaw,  who  taught  Hugh  II.  to  read, 
may  have  Imbibed  as  a  child  his  theory  of 
tenant-right.  She  afterwards  married  a 
neighbouring  gentleman,  Samuel  Martin, 
and  had  a  son  John.  Jane  Martin  may 
have  instilled  into  her  son  John  the  tenant- 
right  notions  she  had  adopted  as  a  child 
from  the  farm  servant.  John  Martin  met 
at  school  the  famous  John  Mitchell,  and 
may  have  communicated  to  him  the  ideas 
he  had  imbibed  from  his  mother.  After 
mentioning  these  possibilities  and  supposi- 
tions, Dr.  Wright  sums  up  :  '  /  think  there 
is  no  doubt  that  John  Martin's  belief  and 
principles  grew  from  seeds  sown  by  Hugh 
Bronte,  the  servant  boy,  in  the  sympathetic 
mind  of  his  mother." 

Well,  but  the  proof?  Surely  all  this 
will  not  be  put  forward  without  some  evi- 
dence ?  Yes,  a  witness  is  called,  and  one 
only,  but  his  testimony  is  rather  upsetting. 

131 


The  Brontes 

Of  course,  if  Hugh  II.  had  produced  such 
an  impression  on  the  Harshaw  family,  had 
been  taught  by  the  children,  and  was  the 
indirect  means  of  sending  one  of  the  grand- 
children to  penal  servitude  for  ten  years 
(p.  98),  his  memory  would  have  survived 
among  the  Harshaws  or  nowhere.  But 
what  says  the  present  representative  of  the 
family  ?  "  The  probability  is  that  Hugh 
Bronte  hired  with  my  grandfather,  whose 
land  touched  the  Lough  ;  but  I  fear  it  is 
too  true  that  he  passed  through  my  grand- 
father s  service  and  left  no  permanent  record 
behind  him  "  (p.  96). 

But  we  have  not  disclosed  the  whole  of 
the  debt  which  the  Irish  tenants  of  to-day 
owe  to  Hugh  II.  For  Hugh  II.  was  a 
tenant  on  an  estate  which  belonged  to 
Sharman  Crawford,  ''  a  landlord  who  first 
took  up  the  cause  of  tenant-right,  and 
after  spending  a  long  life  in  its  advocacy 
bequeathed    its   defence   to    his  sons  and 

daughters ;  "  and  it  seems  to  Dr.  Wright 

132 


Fact  and  Fiction 

**  not  only  probable  but   morally  certain " 
that  the  words  of  Bronte  II.,  dropped  into 
the  justice-loving  minds  of  the  Crawfords, 
were  the  primary  seeds  of  all  the  recent 
land  legislation  in  Ireland.     But  again  we 
ask,  what  evidence  is  there  1     Dr.  Wright 
replies  :    ''I    knew  the  late  W.   Sharman 
Crawford,  M.P.,  well ;  and  I  once  talked 
with  him  of  Hugh   Bronte's   tenant-right 
theories,  of  which  he  was  thoroughly  aware. 
/  did  not  ask  hiTU  if  his  father  had  got  his 
views  from  Bronte,  as  I  had  no  doubt  of  the 
fact''   (p.    153).      However,  he  apparently 
did   ask   another   member   of  the  family. 
Miss  M.  Sharman  Crawford,  and  she  sent 
the   following  very  sensible    reply :    "  My 
father  certainly  originated  tenant-right  as 
a  public  question,  though,  no  doubt,  long 
before  the  period  when  he  strove  to  amend 
the  position  of  Irish  tenants,  many  thoughtful 
minds  like  his  must  have  protested  against 
the  legalised  injustice  to  which  they  were 
subject"   (p.    153).     She   admits,   that   is, 

133 


The  Brontes 

that  Hugh  Bronte,  like  many  others,  may 
have  proclaimed  the  injustice  under  which 
tenants  in  Ireland  were  growing,  but  about 
Dr.  Wright's  little  story  she  evidently  knew 
nothing.  No  doubt,  thousands  of  men  of 
every  rank,  even  earlier  than  Hugh  H.'s 
time,  must  have  given  utterance  to  just 
such  sentiments  as  are  attributed  to  him  in 
Dr.  Wright's  book.^  But  there  is  not  a 
shred  of  evidence  to  connect  our  mythical 
hero  with  recent  Irish  legislation,  or  to 
show  that  the  Irish  Land  Acts  are  due 
to  the  eviction  of  the  novelists'  ancestors 
at  the  beginning  of  last  century.  I  have 
examined  this  part  of  Dr.  Wright's  book 
at  some  length  because  it  is  typical  of  the 
rest,  being  a  mass  of  illogical  assumptions 
unsupported  by  even  the  semblance  of  proof 
Indeed  the  whole  history  of  Hugh  1 1,  seems 
to  be  a  pure  myth.     Beyond  the  fact  that 

*  They  are  given  apparently  almost  verbatim,  and 
occupy  nearly  ten  pages.  We  cannot  but  wonder  at 
the  prodigious  memories  which  have  preserved  for  us 
these  century-old  records. 

134 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  novelists'  grandfather  was  named  Hugh 
and  that  he  married  an  Alice  McClory  in 
1776,  I  doubt  whether  we  can  depend  on 
a  line  of  the  book  relating  to  Hugh  the 
Paragon. 

The  Irish  Uncles  and  Aunts  of  the 
Novelists. 

In  considering  Dr.  Wright's  stories  about 
the  next  generation  of  the  Brontes,  the 
uncles  and  aunts  of  the  novelists,  the  reader 
often  finds  himself  asking,  Did  or  did  not 
Dr.  Wright  personally  know  these  remark- 
able individuals,  and  if  so  what  was  the 
extent  of  his  intimacy  with  them  ?  In  his 
chapter  on  the  sources  of  his  information 
he  merely  says  that  "he  came  into  contact 
with  the  Irish  Brontes  as  a  child^'  and  we 
read  on,  assuming  that  his  minute  informa- 
tion about  these  prodigies  is  derived  from 
others.  But  presently  our  belief  is  unsettled. 
He  says  of  Hugh  III.  (the  Giant)  in  a  note 
on  p.  292  : 

135 


The  Brontes 

"  I  often  talked  with  Hugh  of  his  adven- 
ture in  England,  but  the  conversation 
always  came  to  an  abrupt  termination  if  I 
referred  to  Haworth  or  the  object  of  his 
mission." 

Here  he  seems  to  know  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  characters  in  the  book  quite 
intimately.  Another  passage  confirms  this 
impression.   Dr.  Wright  declares  on  p.  173  : 

*'  When  I  first  began  to  take  an  interest 
in  the  Brontes  I  was  admonished  in  a 
mysterious  manner  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  people.  I  was  advised  to  keep 
out  of  their  way  lest  I  should  hear  their 
odious  language  ;  and  it  was  even  hinted 
that  they  might  in  some  satanic  way  do  me 
bodily  harm." 

From  the  context  it  seems  impossible  to 
suppose  that  Dr.  Wright  is  not  here  refer- 
ring to  the  Irish  aunts  and  uncles  ;  and 
yet  to  our  surprise  in  the  body  of  his  book 
he  seems  to  know  nothing  of  them  himself. 
Even  when  he  tells  us  such  trivial  facts  as 

136 


Fact  and  Fiction 

that  one  was  ''very  smart "  or  that  another 
could  play  the  fiddle,  the  facts  are  never 
given  at  first  hand.  Old  Alice  at  least  we 
should  have  supposed  was  personally  known 
to  him  ;  but  though  he  was  "  in  corre- 
spondence with  her  directly  or  indirectly 
till  her  death,"  whenever  her  remarks  are 
quoted  it  is  always  something  that  she  has 
said  to  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk.  It  is  curious 
in  what  an  atmosphere  of  fog  Dr.  Wright 
leaves  all  his  sources  of  information. 

But,  however  his  material  may  have 
been  acquired,  it  is  certain  that  even  when 
the  book  brings  us  down  to  the  time  of  the 
novelists'  uncles  and  aunts  the  mythical  air 
is  not  all  dispersed.  Dr.  Wright  gives  a 
description  of  these  most  remarkable  per- 
sons. It  was  given  him  when  a  boy  by 
his  teacher,  the  Rev.  Mr.  McAllister,  and 
Mr.  McAllister  received  it  in  turn  from  a 
young  cousin  ;  but  although  this  tradition  is 
the  best  part  of  a  century  old,  and  has  been 
handed  down   through  three   generations, 

137 


The  Brontes 

Dr.  Wright  is  able  to  give  it  apparently 
word  for  word  to  the  length  of  eight  pages ! 
The  scene  described  (Chapter  XVIII.)  is 
the  al  fresco  concert,  dance  and  sports,  in 
which  the  young  men  and  maidens  of  the 
Bronte  family  indulged  every  favourable 
afternoon  on  the  ''  Bronte  dancing  green." 
The  whole  is  like  a  scene  from  Spenser's 
Faery  Queen,  and  shows  these  Brontes  to 
have  been  extraordinary  and  unique  in- 
deed, moving  habitually  in  ''the  light  that 
never  was  on  land  or  sea."  The  observers 
whose  words  Dr.  Wright  records  w^ere 
"  very  young  at  the  time " — and  so  we 
should  have  supposed  from  their  inflated 
language  —but  apparently  they  were  old 
enough  to  be  struck,  not  only  by  the 
beauty  and  stateliness  of  form  of  the 
Brontes,  and  the  poetry  of  their  move- 
ments, but  also  by  the  originality  of  their 
conversation.  We  are  told  of  their  ''  quaint 
conceptions,"  ''  glowing  thoughts,"  and  their 
"expressions     far    from     commonplace"; 

138 


Fact  and  Fiction 

they  used  language  which  ''  Hterally  made 
the  flesh  creep  and  the  hair  stand  on  end," 
and  they  uttered  their  thoughts  "  with  a 
pent-up  and  concentrated  energy  never 
equalled  in  rugged  force  by  the  novelists." 
Dr.  Wright  assures  us  that  they  were 
looked  upon  as  uncanny  by  the  common 
people,  and  ''  held  themselves  carefully 
aloof"  from  their  neighbours.  Unfortu- 
nately this  generation  of  Brontes  lived  so 
near  our  own  time  that  it  is  impossible  to 
keep  off  from  them  altogether  ''  the  light  of 
common  day,"  and  with  Dr.  Wright's  aid 
we  get  the  historical  view  of  these  aunts 
and  uncles  of  the  novelists  side  by  side 
with  the  semi-mythical.  Welsh  opened  a 
public-house,  which  became  a  meeting- 
place  for  the  fast  youth  of  the  district. 
Later,  William  kept  a  shebeen  which  be- 
came a  source  of  degradation  both  to  the 
neighbourhood  and  himself  James  was  a 
shoemaker,  and  his  sister  Alice  describes 
him  as  one  who  ''  took  a  hand  at  every- 

139 


The  Brontes 

thing,  and  was  very  smart  and  active  with 
his  tongue.  He  was  a  great  favourite  with 
children."  Hugh  HI.  and  Welsh  the  same 
sister  describes  as  very  industrious,  and 
making  a  great  deal  of  money  by  mac- 
adamising roads.  In  fact,  the  brothers  and 
sisters  belonged  to  a  capable  type  of  Irish 
peasant,  but  were  by  no  means  the  awe- 
some and  ideal  figures  of  the  myth. 
Nor  did  they  always  drop  pearls  and 
diamonds  when  they  opened  their  mouths, 
as  the  Spenserian  chapter  would  have 
us  believe.  There  are  several  of  their 
sayings  scattered  through  the  book,  and  all 
of  the  most  ordinary  description.  I  have 
already  given  Alice's  account  of  her  Aunt 
Mary.  Then  there  is  James's  account  of 
Charlotte  on  his  return  from  a  visit  to 
Haworth  :  "  Charlotte  is  tarrible  sharp  and 
inquisitive."  It  is  admitted  that  they  were 
unable  to  understand  their  nieces'  novels. 
They  took  them,  we  are  told,  to  the  Rev. 
Mr.  McKee,  and  were  delighted  when  he 

140 


Fact  and  Fiction 

pronounced  them  **gran',"  so  that  they 
could  tell  their  neighbours,  ''  Mr.  McKee 
thinks  Charlotte  very  cliver."  It  is  in- 
teresting to  compare  in  this  manner  the 
real  characters  with  the  ideal.  We  thus 
learn  that,  as  the  sun  can  make  a  gorgeous 
sunset  out  of  mist  and  smoke,  so  a  beautiful 
myth  can  be  evolved  out  of  most  common- 
place elements,  provided  a  succession  of 
enthusiastic  imaginations  be  set  to  work 
upon  them.  That  the  al  fresco  chapter, 
apart  from  its  want  of  harmony  with  other 
accounts  of  these  Brontes,  is  inconsistent  in 
itself,  any  careful  reader  will  discover  who 
will  keep  in  mind  the  dates  recorded  in  our 
genealogical  chart,  and  remember  that  the 
scene  described  in  that  chapter  took  place 
in  1812.^ 

*  £.^.,  the  women  are  described  thus:  "They  were 
mature  maidens,  but  they  had  not  lost  their  elegant 
figures  or  their  fresh  red  and  white  complexions." 
This  would  lead  us  to  suppose  them  women  of  thirty- 
five  ;  in  point  of  fact,  in  1812  the  three  eldest  were  aged 
twenty-three,  twenty-one,  and  twenty  respectively. 

141 


The  Brontes 

The  conclusion  to  which  the  book  itself 
led  me  is  strikingly  confirmed  by  the  ex- 
ternal evidence  which  has  become  available 
since  my  original  exposure  of  Dr.  Wright's 
work  appeared.  The  terms  in  which  I  de- 
scribed the  real  Irish  Brontes  are  re-echoed 
quite  independently  by  Miss  Shannon,  who, 
of  course,  speaks  with  complete  knowledge. 
She  writes  that  *'  there  was  nothing  re- 
markable about  them  more  than  any  other 
family  "  save  their  foreign  appearance  and 
quickness  to  resent  insult.  Mrs.  Heslip's 
evidence  shows  that  whenever  Dr.  Wright 
goes  beyond  such  bare  facts  as  that  one 
macadamised  roads  and  another  kept  a 
public-house,  he  falls  into  error.  Through- 
out his  book  he  insists,  as  we  have  seen, 
on  the  fact  that  these  Brontes  kept  much 
to  themselves,  and  were  looked  upon  as 
uncanny  by  their  neighbours.  He  supports 
this  by  saying  (p.  239)  that  they  went 
regularly  to  no  place  of  worship ;   that   if 

ever  they  did  drop  into  a  meeting-house, 

142 


Fact  and  Fiction 

they  were  stared  at  as  reprobates  by  the 
worshippers ;  that  they  incurred  "  the 
stigma  of  Hving  Hke  heathen."  Mrs. 
HesHp  says,  on  the  contrary,  they  went 
to  church  regularly,  and  continued  to  do 
so  till  the  infirmities  of  old  age  kept 
them  at  home  ;  and  the  County  Down 
Brontes  emphatically  confirm  this  state- 
ment. Again,  Dr.  Wright  has  some  mar- 
vellous ghost  stories  to  tell  of  Hugh  III. 
(the  Giant).  Ghost-baiting,  he  says,  was  a 
passion  with  the  Brontes.  One  of  Hugh's 
sisters  lived  in  a  house  in  which  a  man 
named  Frazer  had  committed  suicide. 
Frazer's  ghost  haunted  the  house,  and 
Hugh  HI.  sought  to  exorcise  it,  and 
challenored  it  to  a  combat.  He  afterwards 
retired  to  bed  in  a  delirium  of  frenzy,  and 
during  the  night  the  ghost  appeared  and 
gave  him  a  squeeze,  from  which  he  died 
shortly  after  in  great  agony.  Dr.  Wright's 
book  leaves  us  with  the  impression  that 
this  is  a  family  tradition  and  he  says,  more- 

143 


The  Brontes 

over,  that  an  old  fellow  named  Norton,  still 
living,  can  confirm  it.  Hugh's  niece  and 
grand-niece,  however,  point  out  that  there 
is  no  excuse  for  perpetuating  such  a  tale, 
since  Hugh  lived  till  March  1863,  when 
he  died  a  very  old  man  and  without 
sufferine."^  Then  there  is  another  marvel- 
lous  yarn  about  Hugh  HI.  and  the  devil. 
On  the  occasion  of  a  potato  blight  this 
Hugh  believed  that  the  devil  in  bodily 
form  had  destroyed  the  crop,  and  resolved 
not  to  submit  tamely  to  this  personal 
injury.  In  order  to  insult  the  fiend  he 
determined  to  gather  a  basketful  of  rotten 
potatoes,  and  taking  them  to  the  edge  of  a 
precipice,  to  ''  call  on  the  devil  to  behold 
his  foul    and    filthy   work,   and    then  with 

*  A  correspondent  points  out  to  me  that  in  his  third 
edition,  at  the  end  of  a  footnote  in  small  print  quoting 
old  Norton's  testimony,  Dr.  Wright  adds,  in  two  lines, 
the  true  facts  as  given  by  Hugh's  relations.  By  these 
facts  the  story  is  completely  destroyed  ;  but  instead  of 
cancelling  the  myth  Dr.  Wright  puts  the  refutation  where 
few  will  notice  it. 

144 


Fact  and  Fiction 

great  violence  dash  them  down  as  a  feast 
for  the  fetid  destroyer."  Dr.  Wright  de- 
scribes the  incident  in  the  following  melo- 
dramatic style  : 

"With  bare  outstretched  arms,  the 
veins  in  his  neck  and  forehead  standing 
out  like  hempen  cords,  and  his  voice 
choking  with  concentrated  passion,  he 
would  apostrophise  Beelzebub  as  the 
bloated  fly,  and  call  on  him  to  partake 
of  the  filthy  repast  he  had  provided.  The 
address  ended  with  wild  scornful  laughter 
as  Bronte  hurled  the  rotten  potatoes  down 
the  bank"  (p.  184). 

A  spectator  told  Dr.  Wright  that  for  a 
few  seconds  he  watched  in  terror,  expect- 
ing the  fiend  to  appear,  so  powerful  was 
the  spell  of  Hugh's  earnestness.  But  now, 
as  Prince  Henry  said  to  Falstaff,  ''mark 
how  a  plain  tale  shall  put  you  down  ; "  this 
inconvenient  Mrs.  Heslip  is  here  to  give 
us  the  true  version  :  '*  I  gathered  potatoes, 
and  helped  him  to  carry  the  basket  to  the 

145  K 


The  Brontes 

cliffs ;  and  as  we  emptied  he  would  say,  in 
a  laughing  style  and  for  fun,  '  There's  a 
mouthful  for  the  devil.' "  In  fact,  she  says, 
her  uncle  was  full  of  such  rollicking  humour 
on  these  occasions  that  she  would  lie  down 
on  the  ground  and  roar  with  laughter. 
Here  again  we  see  how,  under  the  touch 
of  an  enthusiastic  fancy,  a  commonplace 
incident  can  be  transformed  into  a  roman- 
tic myth.  The  latter  part  of  Dr.  Wright's 
book  is  as  full  of  such  myths  as  the  earlier. 
Indeed,  it  would  appear  that  there  is 
nothing  trustworthy  in  our  author's  ac- 
count of  the  novelists'  aunts  and  uncles 
beyond  the  few  dry  biographical  facts 
which  old  Alice  Bronte  gave  to  the  Rev. 
J.  B.  Lusk  in  1890. 

The  Reviewer  and  the  Avenger. 

When  we  come  to  the  latest  narrative 
in  the  book,  which  brings  us  nearly  to  the 
year    1850,   the    reader  will   suppose   that 

1^6 


Fact  and  Fiction 

here,  at  least,  we  must  reach  solid  ground. 
But  it  is  not  so.  Everyone  has  heard  how 
Hugh  III.  (the  Giant)  set  out,  shillelagh 
in  hand,  on  what  Dr.  Wright  calls  ''  one 
of  the  strangest  undertakings  within  the 
whole  range  of  literary  adventure,"  viz.,  to 
find  and  slay  the  Qtcarterly  reviewer  who 
had  traduced  his  niece.  The  tale  has 
found  its  way,  I  believe,  into  almost  every 
newspaper  in  Great  Britain,  and  will  pro- 
bably continue  to  be  told  as  fact  for  many 
a  long  year  to  come.  Yet  I  shall  be  able 
to  show  beyond  all  controversy  that  there 
is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  the  story.  My 
suspicions  were  aroused  by  the  incon- 
sistencies and  peculiarities  of  the  narrative 
itself,  and  by  Dr.  Wright's  admissions  that 
he  could  never  induce  Hugh  H  I.  to  acknow- 
ledge its  truth,  nor  could  the  daughter  of 
the  gentleman  to  whom  Hugh  is  alleged 
to  have  told  it,  and  that  it  was  unknown  to 
some  of  Hugh's  brothers  and  sisters.  I 
resolved,   therefore,  to    institute    inquiries. 

147 


The  Brontes 

The  story  tells  that  Hugh  III.  called  again 
and  again  at  Murray's,  and  inquired  for  the 
reviewer ;  the  publishers  gave  him  no  infor- 
mation, however,  but,  instead,  tried  to  find 
out  from  him  the  name  of  the  anonymous 
author  oijane  Eyre  ;  and,  at  last,  seeing  his 
truculent  character,  forbade  him  the  house. 
A  piquant  anecdote  such  as  this,  I  said  to 
myself,  relating  to  so  famous  a  person  as 
Charlotte  Bronte,  is  sure  to  be  treasured 
among  the  literary  reminiscences  of  the 
firm  of  Murray.  Accordingly  I  wrote  to 
them  on  the  subject.  Mr.  John  Murray 
says  in  his  reply  that  he  is  unable  to 
believe  a  word  of  the  story,  and  adds : 
"There  is  no  record  here  of  such  a  visit 
having  taken  place,  and  I  never  heard  my 
father  allude  to  it  as  a  fact."  Dr.  Wright 
proceeds  to  tell  us  that  when  the  Avenger 
was  baffled  at  Murray's  he  went  to  Messrs. 
Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  and  told  them  his 
errand  ;  they  received  him  civilly,  and  pro- 
cured for  him  admission  into  the   British 

148 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Museum  reading-room,  where  he  might 
perchance  find  out  the  name  of  the  offend- 
ing reviewer.  Now  every  one  knows  that 
the  relations  between  Charlotte  Bronte 
and  her  publishers  were  of  the  most  friendly- 
character  ;  they  took  the  warmest  interest 
in  all  that  concerned  her  literary  work,  and 
they  knew  how  deeply  she  had  been  hurt 
by  the  review  in  the  Quarterly,  If  this 
extraordinary  incident  had  taken  place, 
then,  it  would  have  made  a  great  impres- 
sion. The  member  of  the  firm  with  whom 
Charlotte  corresponded,  and  at  whose 
house  she  visited,  is  fortunately  yet  with 
us,  and  could  confirm  the  story  if  true. 
But,  in  reply  to  my  inquiries,  the  firm 
write  that  they  have  ''no  recollection"  of 
any  such  incident.  f"Finally,  Dr.  Wright 
tells  us  that  Hugh  III.  haunted  the  British 
Museum  reading-room,  and  met  there  a 
rich  old  gentleman  who  several  times  in- 
vited him  to  his  house,  drank  his  health  at 
dinner,    examined    his   shillelagh,    and   so 

149 


The  Brontes 

forth.  Now  it  so  happens  that  an  accurate 
and  classified  Hst  is  kept  of  all  who  are 
admitted  to  the  reading-room  of  the  British 
Museum.  One  of  the  officials  has  kindly 
made  a  careful  search  for  me,  and  no 
Hugh  Bronte  visited  the  room  as  stated  in 
Dr.  Wright's  history.  The  story  is  plainly 
apocryphal.  Either  Dr.  Wright's  informant 
or  Hugh  HI.  himself  was  romancing. 

This  external  evidence  will  seem  to 
most  people  sufficient.  But  in  order  that 
there  may  be  left  no  pretext  for  resusci- 
tating the  tale,  I  propose  next  to  test  its 
statements  by  other  facts  known  to  us. 

The  Quarterly  containing  the  savage 
attack  upon  the  author  oi  Jane  Eyre  was 
issued  December  1848.  The  correspond- 
ence in  Mr.  Shorter's  book  makes  it  clear 
that,  contrary  to  what  has  hitherto  been 
believed,  the  authorship  of  the  offending 
article  did  not  long  remain  a  secret ; 
shortly  after  February  4,  1849,  Charlotte 
knew  that  Miss  Rigby  was  the  reviewer. 

150 


Fact  and  Fiction 

The  disclosure  of  this  fact  must  have  been 
as  a  bolt  out  of  the  blue  to  Dr.  Wright  ; 
but  he  is  not  easily  staggered,  and  he  soon 
recovered  himself  In  the  Bookman  of 
December  1896  he  explains  how  it  all 
happened.  By  the  second  week  in 
December  the  covert  taunts  of  the  sur- 
rounding peasantry,  who,  no  doubt,  were 
diligent  readers  of  the  Quarterly,  had 
roused  Hugh  III.  to  undertake  his  mis- 
sion of  vengeance  :  "  The  Brontes  never 
delayed,  and  Hugh  must  have  reached 
Haworth  before  Christmas.  Hugh's 
money  and  mission  must  certainly  have 
come  to  an  end  before  the  close  of 
January  1849."^  Very  well  :  we  will  take 
Dr.  Wright's  word  for  it,  and  will  examine 
the  tale  accordingly. 

Before  Christmas,  then,  Hugh  the  Giant 
arrived  at  Haworth.     Anne  Bronte  at  this 

*  It  is  almost  certain  that  Charlotte  did  not  su  the 
offending  article  till  the  beginning  of  February.  (See 
Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle^  p.  igo.) 

151 


The  Brontes 

time  was  most  seriously  ill  ;^  and  on 
December  19  Emily  Bronte  died.  It  was 
a  period  of  most  poignant  anguish,  and 
the  agony  of  it  still  throbs  in  brave  Char- 
lotte's letters.  How  is  it,  then,  that  not 
a  word  of  all  this  occurs  in  Dr.  Wright's 
detailed  account  of  the  visit?  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  Hugh,  who  must  have  been  in 
the  house  at  the  time  of  the  death  or  the 
funeral,  or  both,  can  have  said  nothing  of 
these  sad  circumstances  to  his  Irish  confi- 
dants, when  he  gives  so  many  other  unim- 
portant and  trivial  details  of  his  visit  ? 

Hugh,  we  are  told,  ''  reached  the 
vicarage  on  a  Sunday,  when  all  except 
Martha,  the  old  servant,  were  at  Church." 
Martha  "  rated  him  soundly  for  journeying 
on  the  Sabbath,"  but  allowed  him  to  re- 
main till  the  family  returned.  It  will  be 
seen   at   once   that   this  is   quite  irrecon- 

*  This  appears  from  several  of  Charlotte's  letters — 
among  others  those  dated  January  10  (Mrs.  Gaskell's 
Life,  p.  284)  and  January  2  and  18  {Charlotte  Bronte  and 
her  Circle,  pp.  176  and  185). 

152 


Fact  and  Fiction 

cileable  with  the  facts.  Anne  at  this  time 
was  far  gone  in  consumption,  Charlotte 
was  engaged  in  nursing  her,  and  both 
sisters  were  prostrate  with  grief  Is  it 
likely  that  they  would  be  allowed  on  a 
Sunday  in  mid-winter  to  go  and  sit  in  a 
cold  church  ? 

When  the  family  returned,  we  are  told, 
''  the  girls  gathered  round  him,"  and  lis- 
tened eagerly  to  his  ghost  stories  !  Appa- 
rently Dr.  Wright  imagined  that  all  three 
sisters  were  alive  and  full  of  vivacity  and 
spirit.  Imagine  the  two  girls  listening 
eagerly  to  ghost  stories  at  a  time  when 
Emily  was  either  lying  dead  upstairs  or 
had  just  been  placed  in  her  grave  !  These 
are  minute  points,  perhaps,  but  I  allude  to 
them  to  show  that  there  is  not  a  fino^er's 
breadth  in  this  narrative  which  does  not 
crumble  away  at  a  touch. 

Old  Mr.  Bronte  and  Charlotte,  we  are 
told,  tried  to  dissuade  Hugh  III.  from  his 
purpose,    ''but   gentle    Anne   sympathised 

153 


The  Brontes 

with  him  and  wished  him  success."  On 
his  return,  unsuccessful,  ''the  gentle  Anne 
received  him  with  the  warmest  welcome, 
and  talked  of  accompanying  him  to  Ireland, 
which  she  spoke  of  as  'home.'  At  part- 
ing she  threw  her  long  slender  arms  round 
his  neck  and  called  him  her  '  noble  uncle,'  " 
(p.  291).  Is  this  credible.'^  Remember 
Hugh's  purpose  was  murder:  "The 
scoundrel  who  had  spoken  of  his  niece  as 
if  she  were  a  strumpet  must  die.  Hugh's 
oath  was  pledged,  and  he  meant  to  per- 
form it  "  (p.  282).  Before  leaving  Ireland, 
we  are  told,  he  made  his  will,  apparently 
thinking  that  either  he  might  be  slain  in 
making  his  assault  or  fall  into  the  hang- 
man's hands  afterwards.  Is  it  conceivable 
that  the  dying  Anne,  deeply  religious  as 
we  know  her  to  have  been,  would  have 
encouraged  an  ignorant  peasant  to  the 
commission  of  a  crime  which  would  have 
brought  him  to  the  gallows  1  I  venture 
to  think  there  is  not  one  of  my  readers 

154 


Fact  and  Fiction 

who  will  not  cry  out  upon  this  story,  Im- 
possible ! 

It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  Hugh  should 
have  known  his  niece  to  be  the  author  of 
Jane  Eyre  at  a  time  when  Charlotte  was 
most  anxious  to  keep  it  a  profound  secret. 
Dr.  Wright  says,  indeed,  that  she  sent 
presentation  copies  of  all  her  works  to  her 
Irish  relatives,  and  that  he  possesses  some 
of  these  himself.  He  does  not  tell  us  what 
proof  he  has  that  the  copies  in  his  posses- 
sion once  belonged  to  the  Irish  Brontes, 
and  he  acknowledges  that  the  volumes  of 
Jane  Eyre  cannot  be  traced.  I  am  afraid 
it  will  need  evidence  much  stronger  than 
is  yet  forthcoming  to  convince  us  that 
Charlotte  thus  gave  away  her  secret. 
Ten  months  after  the  alleged  mission  of 
vengeance  we  find  her  writing  to  Mr. 
Williams  :  "  I  earnestly  desire  to  preserve 
my  incognito."  ^  Yet  Dr.  Wright  wishes 
us  to  believe  that  from  the  first  the  name 

*  See  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle,  p.  354. 
155 


The  Brontes 

of  the  author  oi  Jane  Eyre  had  been  known 
not  only  to  the  people  of  the  manse  at 
Ballynaskeagh,  but  to  all  the  surrounding 
peasantry !  Even  could  this  be  proved, 
the  mission  of  vengeance  would  still  re- 
main incredible.  Charlotte  would  have 
moved  heaven  and  earth  to  prevent  it. 
It  would  have  been  intolerable  to  her  that 
the  secret  which  had  exercised  all  the 
newspaper  editors  in  Great  Britain  should 
first  be  disclosed  in  the  paragraphs  of 
police  intelligence.  Yet  if  she  had  allowed 
a  wild  Irishman  to  go  to  London  to 
vindicate  her  honour  with  his  shille- 
lagh, that  would  have  been  the  inevitable 
result. 

Again,  if  this  story  be  true,  old  Mr. 
Bronte  knew  in  December  1848  that  Hugh 
both  possessed  a  copy  oi  Jane  Eyre  and 
was  aware  who  was  its  author.  That  this 
was  not  so  I  shall  now  prove  from  Dr. 
Wright's  own  pen.  There  is  a  volume  in 
existence  of  a  cheap  edition  oi  Jane  Eyre 

156 


Fact  and  Fiction 

with     the    following    inscription    in     Mr. 
Bronte's  own  handwriting : 

"  To  Mr.  Hugh  Bronte,  Ballynaskeagh, 
near  Rathfisland,  Ireland, — This  is  the 
first  work  published  by  my  daughter  under 
the  fictitious  name  of  '  Currer  Bell,'  which 
is  the  usual  way  at  first  of  authors,  but 
her  real  name  is  everywhere  known.  She 
sold  the  copyright  of  this  and  her  other 
two  works  for  fifteen  hundred  pounds,  so 
that  she  has  to  pay  for  the  books  she  gets 
the  same  as  others.  Her  other  books  are 
in  six  volumes,  and  would  cost  nearly  four 
pounds.  This  was  formerly  in  three 
volumes.  In  two  years  hence,  when  all 
shall  be  published  in  a  cheaper  form,  if  all 
be  well,  I  may  send  them.  You  can  let 
my  brothers  and  sisters  read  this. 

^'P.  Bronte,  A.B., 

"  Incumbent  of  Haworth,  near  Keighley. 
*^  January  20,  1853." 

Dr.  Wright's  own  comment  upon    this 


The  Brontes 

inscription  is  :  "  It  assumes  that  the  uncles 
and  aunts  of  the  novelists  had  never  seen 
the  first  edition  of  their  nieces'  works." 
But  how  could  old  Mr.  Bronte  have 
believed,  in  1853,  that  Hugh  knew  nothing 
of  Charlotte's  writings,  if  in  1849  he  had 
tried  to  dissuade  him  from  executing  ven- 
geance on  the  reviewer  who  had  traduced 
the  author  o{  Jane  Eyre?  Can  any  one 
explain  this  puzzle  ?  Further,  it  can  now 
be  proved  from  Charlotte's  own  letters  that 
ten  months  after  Hugh's  alleged  mission 
of  veneeance  old  Mr.  Bronte  did  not  even 
know  of  the  offending  reviewer  s  existence. 
In  August  1849  Charlotte  writes  to  Mr. 
W.  S.  Williams:  "The  Quarterly  I  kept  to 
myself:  it  would  have  worried  papa."^ 

It  is  slaying  the  dead  perhaps  to  pursue 
the  subject  further,  but  I  cannot  forbear 
to  point  out  one  more  of  the  intrinsic 
absurdities  of  the  tale.  The  incumbent 
of  Haworth,  we  are  told,  endeavoured,  by 

*  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle ^  p.  347. 

158 


Fact  and  Fiction 

showing  Hugh  the  sights  of  Yorkshire, 
to  draw  his  mind  from  its  fierce  intents. 
*'  He  was  careful  that  Hugh's  entertain- 
ment should  be  to  his  taste,  and  he  took 
him  to  see  a  prize-fight."  Could  anything 
be  more  blankly  incredible  ?  Even  if  he 
had  been  the  most  flinty  hearted  wretch 
then  living,  would  this  aged  evangelical 
clergyman  have  allowed  himself  to  be  seen 
feasting  his  eyes  on  a  pugilistic  encounter 
almost  before  his  daughter  Emily  was  cold 
in  her  grave  ?  Yet  this  story  has  been 
gravely  accepted  as  history  by  half  the 
literary  critics  of  this  country ! 

I  think  one  is  now  entitled  to  ask 
Dr.  Wright  to  explain  the  genesis  of 
this  curious  narrative.  It  is  not  oriven 
as  a  vague  myth,  but  as  a  detailed 
history.  We  are  told  exactly  how  the 
hero's  shillelagh  was  fashioned  for  the 
adventure,  that  he  embarked  at  Warren- 
point  and  landed  at  Liverpool,  that  the 
name  of  the  vessel  in  which  he  crossed  was 


The  Brontes 

the  Sea  Nymph,  that  the  position  of  his 
lodgings  at  Haworth  was  near  the 
river,  and  so  forth.  I  am  informed  on 
the  best  authority  that  the  Brontes  of 
County  Down  deny  the  whole  story  ;  and 
Mrs.  Heslip,  the  niece  of  Hugh  III.  and 
Miss  Shannon,^  his  grand-niece,  both  assert 
that  at  the  date  when  their  uncle  was  in 
England  the  Bronte  novels  had  neither 
been  written  nor  thought  of.  Dr.  Wright 
must  have  known  these  facts.  What  justi- 
fication can  he  plead  for  publishing  the 
story  without  giving  the  slightest  hint  that 
it  was  disputed  ?  All  who  are  interested 
in  literature  will  wait  with  curiosity  for 
Dr.  Wright's  answer.  In  any  case  it  is 
clearly  proved  that  Hugh  III.'s  adven- 
tures are  apocryphal,  and  if  we  cannot 
trust  our  author's  investigations  when 
they    relate     to    events    alleged    to    have 

*  Miss  Shannon  writes  me :  "  Until  we  saw  the 
account  of  Hugh's  visit  to  thrash  the  reviewer  we  never 
heard  of  it,  nor  do  we  believe  it." 

i6o 


Fact  and  Fiction 

happened  only  half  a  century  since,  what 
credit  can  we  give  to  his  two-hundred-year- 
old  records  ? 


The  Asserted  Irish  Origin  of  the 
Bronte  Novels. 

That  Dr.  Wright  himself  may  unwit- 
tingly have  helped  the  growth  of  these 
myths  is  rendered  possible  by  an  extra- 
ordinary statement  which  he  makes  in  the 
second  chapter  of  his  book.  He  tells  us 
that  when  he  was  a  boy  his  old  school- 
master, the  Rev.  Mr.  McAllister,  used  to 
dictate  to  him  some  of  Hugh  II. 's  tales,  as 
well  as  the  story  of  his  life,  as  themes  for 
composition  ;  and  then  Dr.  Wright  pro- 
ceeds : 

*'  It  thus  happens  that  I  wrote  screeds  of 
the  Bronte  novels  before  a  line  of  them  had 
been  penned  at  Haworth.  ...  I  read  the 
Bronte  novels  with  the  feeling  that  I  had 

iGl  L 


The  Brontes 

already  known  what  was  coming,  and  I 
was  chiefly  interested  in  the  wording  and 
skilful  manipulation  of  details"  (p.  8). 
He  repeats  the  assertion  on  p.  139  :  "  The 
stories  are  all  Bronte  stories,  an  echo 
of  the  thrilling  narratives  related  by  old 
Hugh."  There  cannot  be  a  doubt  that 
Dr.  Wright's  memory  is  playing  strange 
pranks  with  him  here.  If  we  accepted  the 
history  contained  in  his  book  as  true,  it 
would  show  that  Wuthering  Heights  was 
based  on  facts,  but  it  would  not  account 
for  a  single  line  of  the  other  novels.  What 
possible  excuse,  then,  can  Dr.  Wright  give 
for  saying,  as  he  plainly  does  in  the  above 
passage,  that  all  the  novels  of  Charlotte, 
Emily  and  Anne  Bronte  were  founded 
either  on  Hugh  H.'s  life  or  his  stories.^ 
It  will  not  do  to  take  refuge  in  the  latter. 
Wuthering  Heights  is  a  work  of  pure 
imagination,  and  it  is  easy  to  shape  a 
myth  so  as  to  resemble  it.  But  the  stories 
in  the  other  books  deal  with   places  and 

162 


Fact  and  Fiction 

conditions  which  were  altogether  beyond 
the  horizon  of  Hugh  I  I.'s  experiences.  Jane 
Eyre  treats  of  Hfe  in  a  girl's  charity  school, 
and  then  of  the  history  of  an  English 
governess.  The  plots  of  Villette  and  The 
Professor  are  both  laid  in  Belgian  schools. 
The  characters  in  Shirley  are  Yorkshire 
girls,  Yorkshire  parsons,  and  Yorkshire 
manufacturers.  Agnes  Grey  records  the 
experiences  and  trials  of  a  private  gover- 
ness in  various  families.  The  Tenant  of 
Wildfell  Hall  deals  with  the  history  of  a 
besotted  drunkard,  and  Charlotte  tells  us 
distinctly  that  it  was  founded  minutely  on 
observation.  Indeed,  the  whole  of  the 
Bronte  novels,  with  the  exception  of 
Wuthering  Heights,  are  the  result  of  the 
play  of  a  creative  imagination  on  personal 
experiences,  and  those  who  are  familiar 
with  both  the  lives  of  the  Brontes  and 
their  novels  can  identify  almost  every 
character  of  importance  in  them.  It  is 
therefore     utterly     impossible     that     Dr. 

163 


The  Brontes 

Wright  could  have  known  what  was 
coming  as  he  read  the  Bronte  novels  for 
the  first  time,  and  he  may  be  challenged  to 
point  out  any  plot  in  Charlotte's  or  Anne's 
books  which  could  by  any  possibility  have 
been  borrowed  from  the  stories  of  an  Irish 
peasant  in  Hugh's  circumstances. 

And  the  claim  that  WutJiering  Heights 
is  based  upon  this  Hugh's  history  is  as 
ridiculous  as  that  the  other  novels  are 
founded  upon  his  stories.  The  improba- 
bilities, the  anachronisms,  the  inconsis- 
tencies of  that  history,  as  told  by  Dr. 
Wright,  I  have  already  exposed.  I  have 
shown  that  not  a  scrap  of  evidence  worthy 
the  name  is  adduced  in  its  favour ;  and  I 
have  recalled  the  fact  that  the  near  re- 
lations of  Hugh  n.  were  confessedly  igno- 
rant of  the  story  which  yet  we  are  led  to 
believe  was  ever  on  his  lips.  But,  even  if 
the  evidence  were  as  strong  as  it  is  weak, 
we  should  still  have  to  reject  Dr.  Wright's 
theory.      The      truth  -  loving     Charlotte's 

164 


Fact  and  Fiction 

account  of  the  matter  must  necessarily  be 
final.  She  might  blamelessly  have  kept 
silence  about  the  origin  of  Wuthering 
Heights,  but  she  would  never  have  de- 
liberately misled  us ;  and  she  tells  us 
distinctly  in  her  preface  to  her  sister's 
book,  that  the  materials  of  Wuthering 
Heights  were  gathered  in  Yorkshire. 
Speaking  of  Emily's  aloofness  from  all 
her  neighbours,  she  says  :  *'  Yet  she  knew 
them ;  knew  their  ways,  their  language, 
their  family  histories  ;  she  could  hear  of 
them  with  interest,  and  talk  of  them  with 
detail,  minute,  graphic  and  accurate ;  but 
with  them  she  rarely  exchanged  a  word. 
Hence  it  ensued  that  what  her  mind  had 
gathered  of  the  real  concerning  them  was 
too  exclusively  confined  to  those  tragic 
and  terrible  traits  of  which,  in  listening  to 
the  secret  annals  of  every  rude  vicinage, 
the  memory  is  sometimes  compelled  to  re- 
ceive the  impress.    Her  imagination,  which 

was  a  spirit  more  sombre  than  sunny,  more 

165 


The  Brontes 

powerful  than  sportive,  fotmd  in  such  traits 
material  whe7ice  it  wrought  creations  like 
Heathcliffe,  like  Earns  haw,  like  Catherine  T 
To  all  who  really  know  Charlotte's  cha- 
racter, this  is  conclusive  and  final.  Had 
both  plot  and  characters  been  derived  from 
the  history  of  an  ancestor,  these  words 
would  never  have  been  written. 


Prunty  v.  Bronte. 

Enough  has  now  been  said  to  show  that 
Dr.  Wright  s  book  is  not  history  but  myth, 
and  substantially  nothing  else  but  myth. 
But  his  errors  have  been  the  means  of 
eliciting  light  upon  at  least  one  interesting 
question — that  of  the  name  of  the  Irish 
ancestors  of  the  novelists.  Before  the 
publication  of  The  Brontes  in  Ireland  it 
was  conjectured  that  the  novelists'  father 
had  assumed  his  high-sounding  cognomen 
about  the  time  (1799)  when  the  dukedom 

166 


Fact  and  Fiction 

of  Bronte  was  conferred  upon  Nelson  ;  It 
was  asserted  that  Bronte  was  not  an  Irish 
name,  and  Mr.  Birrell  and  others  sug- 
gested that  the  novelists  were  descended 
from  Irish  Pruntys.  Dr.  Wright  In  his 
book  set  himself  to  prove  that  the  name 
had  always  been  ''Bronte"  and  nothing 
else,  and  In  order  to  do  this  he  used 
what  evidence  was  In  his  favour  and 
entirely  omitted  all  that  told  against  his 
theory.  The  baptismal  register  of  Patrick 
Bronte  and  his  brothers — extending  be- 
tween the  years  1779  and  1791 — was 
discovered  by  the  Rev.  H.  W.  Lett,  and 
here  the  surname  is  found  as  Brunty  and 
B  run  tee.  Dr.  Wright  quotes  all  the 
Christian-names  from  this  register  (p.  159), 
but  never  gives  a  hint  that  the  surname  is 
not  Bronte.^  Similarly  he  tells  us  that  he 
possesses  photographs  of  Patrick  Bronte's 
matriculation   and   graduation    signatures, 

*  My  references  throughout  are  to  Dr.  Wright's  first 
edition. 

167 


The  Brontes 

and  of  the  latter  (1806)  he  gives  a  facsimile 
— ''  Patrick  Bronte,"  without  the  diaeresis — 
dut  he  gives  us  not  a  hint  that  at  matricii- 
lation  (1802)  the  name  is  entered  "  Patrick 
Branty^  Throughout  his  book  he  never 
for  a  moment  suororests  that  the  name  had 
been  written  other  than  as  at  present,  and 
yet  the  evidence  then  in  his  possession 
revealed  prior  to  1803  ^^  names  B runty, 
Bruntee  and  Branty,  and  not  a  single 
Bronte.  While  thus  suppressing  the  facts 
that  told  against  him,  he  asserts  in  his 
preface  (p.  vi.)  that  the  discovery  of  the 
baptismal  register  ''disposes  for  ever  of 
the  baseless  assertion  that  the  family  was 
called  '  Prunty  '  in  Ireland."  This  is  how 
the  matter  was  left  when  Dr.  Wright  first 
issued  his  book. 

But  the  publication  of  Charlotte  Bronte 
and  her  Circle  brought  to  light  the  facts 
which  Dr.  Wright  had  ignored.  Mr. 
Shorter  revealed  the  surnames  as  written  in 
the  baptismal  register  and  in  the  list  of  ad- 

168 


Fact  and  Fiction 

missions  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge, 
and  further  pointed  out  that  the  name  took 
several  forms  prior  to  1799,  but  never  that 
of  Bronte.  Since  these  facts  were  made 
known  Dr.  Wright,  to  do  him  justice,  has 
disclosed  the  further  evidence  which  has 
come  under  his  notice,  and  very  valuable  it 
is.  He  has  received  from  the  Rev.  J.  B. 
Lusk — to  whom  belongs  the  credit  of  re- 
covering them — certain  old  school-books  of 
the  Brontes.  On  one  of  these  on  different 
pages  are  found  the  following  inscriptions  : 
**  Patrick  Pruty's  book,  bought  in  the  year 
1795  "5  P-  240,  "Patrick  Prunty  his 
book  "  ;  p.  249,  **  Patrick  Prunty  his  book 
and  pen."  On  pp.  232  and  250  the 
name  *'Brunty"  appears;  and  on  pp.  66 
and  240  '*  Walsh  Bronte."  In  another  book 
is  found  the  inscription,  *'  Hugh  Bronte. 
His  book  in  the  year  1803."  ^^-  Wright 
has  also  picked  up  a  New  Testament  which 
he  declares,  but  without  giving  proof, 
belonged  to    the    wife    of    Hugh  H.,  the 

169 


The  Brontes 

grandmother  of  the  novelists,  and  in  this 
volume  the  name  "  Allie  Bronte"  is  faintly 
decipherable. 

If  all  the  above  evidence  be  carefully 
examined  the  following  facts  will  seem 
to  emerge,  though  I  do  not  pretend  that 
complete  certainty  can  be  arrived  at.  The 
peasant  ancestors  of  the  Brontes  spelt  by 
ear,  so  to  speak,  and  were  accustomed  to 
confuse  P  and  B.  Patrick,  when  a  youth 
of  eighteen  years  of  age  with  literary 
ambitions,  knew  that  the  right  spelling 
was  Prunty,  and  wrote  it  accordingly — for 
*'  Pruty "  is  evidently  a  mere  slip.  In 
1802,  when  Patrick  entered  at  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge,  the  plebeian  Prunty 
beofan  to  undero^o  a  transformation  and 
became  Branty.  In  1803,  and  again  in 
1806,  we  find  Bronte,  but  without  the 
diaeresis.  A  little  later  and  it  assumes  the 
shape  now  so  familiar  to  all  admirers  of 
English  literature.     As  to  the  adoption  of 

the  modern  form  of  the  name  by  the  Irish 

170 


Fact  and  Fiction 

relations  we  must  remember  that  the  Rev. 
Patrick  Bronte  was  in  life-long  corre- 
spondence with  his  brethren  of  County 
Down,  and  doubtless,  as  Mr.  Shorter 
suggests,  '*  with  a  true  Celtic  sense  of  the 
picturesqueness  of  the  thing  they  seized 
upon  the  more  attractive  surname."  The 
inscription,  "  Walsh  Bronte,"  in  the  school- 
book  is  accounted  for  when  we  remember 
that  Welsh  was  nine  years  younger  than 
Hugh,  and  probably  would  not  come  into 
possession  of  Hugh's  book  till  the  change 
of  name  was  in  progress.  The  inscrip- 
tion, *'  Allie  Bronte,"  presents  no  diffi- 
culties ;  if  it  really  belonged  to  the  mother 
of  Patrick  Bronte  and  not  to  his  sister — 
of  which  at  present  there  is  no  proof — she 
would,  of  course,  take  to  spelling  her  name 
as  did  her  children,  and  especially  as  did 
that  kind  son  in  England  who  contributed 
so  liberally  to  her  support.  If  the  original 
name  had  been  Bronte  we  may  be  sure 
Patrick,   the  young  and  ambitious  school- 

171 


The  Brontes 

master  of  County  Down,  would  never  have 
written  himself  plain  Patrick  Prunty,  nor 
would  Allie  have  registered  her  children  as 
Bruntys.  It  is  true  that  we  cannot  yet 
get  beyond  exceedingly  probable  conjec- 
ture, but  there  is  at  least  an  end  of  Dr. 
Wright's  too  confident  assertion  that  the 
name  was  never  in  Ireland  called  Prunty.^ 

Sources  of  Error. 

Before  closing  my  notice  of  Dr.  Wright's 
work  two  interesting  questions  suggest 
themselves.  The  first  is :  How  did  Dr. 
Wright  come  to  put  together  such  a  book  ? 
It    is    a  question    I    cannot    fully  answer, 

*  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  notice  the  statement  of 
Frank  Prunty,  the  boatman  on  Lough  Erne,  who 
"believes"  that  the  name  was  spelt  "Bronte"  in  the 
south.  There  is  no  evidence  of  any  such  spelling  pre- 
vious to  the  conferring  of  Nelson's  dukedom,  and  there 
is  clear  evidence  that  it  was  then  spelt  "  Prunty  "  and 
"  Brunty."  The  change  from  the  plebeian  to  the  aristo- 
cratic form  can  be  readily  accounted  for,  but  not  so  the 
converse  change. 

172 


Fact  and  Fiction 

but  I  will  endeavour  in  some  measure  to 
assist  the  puzzled  reader. 

One  source,  possibly,  of  this  strange 
volume  is  indicated  in  our  author's  second 
chapter.  It  may  be  partly  founded  upon 
the  tittle-tattle  of  a  few  Presbyterian 
manses  in  County  Down  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago,  unwittingly  distorted,  perhaps, 
by  the  lapse  of  time  since.  All  Dr. 
Wright's  geese  are  swans,  and  accordingly 
the  Rev.  Mr.  McAllister  of  Finard,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  McKee  of  Ballynaskeagh,  and 
the  rest  are  marvels  of  erudition  and  literary 
acumen.  Mr.  McKee  in  particular  is  re- 
presented as  an  intellectual  giant  as  well 
as  a  moral  paragon.  =^  He  may  have  seemed 
so  to  Dr.  Wright  when  a  boy,  but  of  his 
critical  faculty  we  are  enabled  to  judge  for 
ourselves  by  an  anecdote  that  our  author 

*  "  It  was  a  common  saying  of  the  pupils  that,  had 
he  lived  with  more  favourable  surroundings,  he  would 
have  enriched  the  world  with  thoughts  as  brilliant  as 
Carlyle's,  but  without  Carlyle's  bile"  {Brontes  in  Ireland, 
p.  9). 

173 


The  Brontes 

has  preserved.  When  a  copy  oi  Jane  Eyre 
was  brought  to  Mr.  McKee  by  Hugh  III., 
the  uncle  of  the  novelists,  his  criticism,  after 
reading  it,  was  this:  "The  child,  Jane 
Eyre,  is  your  father  in  petticoats,  and 
Mrs.  Reed  is  the  wicked  uncle  by  the 
Boyne " !  A  more  ridiculous  comparison 
it  is  impossible  to  imagine.  The  melo- 
dramatic villain  Welsh — a  murderer  and 
embezzler — bears  not  the  slightest  resem- 
blance to  the  narrow,  hard,  evangelical 
lady  whose  severity  is  so  distressing  to 
little  Jane ;  and  the  history  of  the  boy 
stolen  from  home  and  suffering  for  ten 
years  the  physical  torments  and  brutalities 
of  his  father's  enemy,  is  totally  unlike  the 
history  of  the  little  orphan  girl  at  Gates- 
head Hall  and  Lowood  School.  But  this 
anecdote  gives  us  a  possible  key  to  some 
of  the  myths.  One  who  could  see  resem- 
blances between  Welsh  and  Mrs.  Reed, 
Hugh  H.  and  Jane  Eyre,  could  see  resem- 
blances at  will  everywhere.     Doubtless,  as 

174 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  fame  of  the  Brontes  grew,  the  ministers 
became  proud  of  their  knowledge  of  the 
Bronte  ancestry,,  and  gradually,  from  tracing 
imaginary  resemblances,  such  as  those  just 
given,  they  may  have  proceeded  uncon- 
sciously to  colour  "  old  Hugh's  yarns,"  as 
Mr.  McKee  calls  them,  with  what  they  read 
in  Wuthermg  Heights. 

Another  source  of  error  is  suggested  by 
Mr.  Shorter  in  his  recent  book.  ''  Dr. 
Wright,"  he  says,  "probably  made  his 
inquiries  with  the  stories  of  Emily  and 
Charlotte  well   in  his  mind.     He   souoht 

o 

for  similar  traditions,  and  the  quick-witted 
peasantry  gave  him  all  that  he  wanted. 
They  served  up  and  embellished  the  current 
traditions  of  the  neighbourhood  for  his 
benefit,  as  the  peasantry  do  everywhere 
for  folk-lore  enthusiasts."  This  theory 
may  account,  perhaps,  for  the  genesis  of 
some  of  the  myths,  but  I  fear  it  will  not 
carry  us  far. 

The  chief  explanation  of  Dr.  Wright's 

^75 


The  Brontes 

errors  is  to  be  found,  doubtless,  in  his 
strange  conceptions  of  what  constitutes 
evidence  and  of  what  is  legitimate  in  the 
manipulation  of  facts.  Our  author  is  first 
possessed  by  an  idea,  and  then  he  finds  in 
every  testimony  he  comes  across  *'  con- 
firmation strong  as  Holy  Writ,"  even  when 
it  is  testimony  distinctly  unfavourable. 
Several  instances  of  this  I  have  already 
had  occasion  to  notice  ;  let  me  strengthen 
them  by  other  examples. 

In  the  preface,  in  which  he  expresses 
indebtedness  to  those  who  assisted  him  in 
his  work.  Dr.  Wright  devotes  a  paragraph 
to  Miss  Nussey,  the  life-long  and  intimate 
friend  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  classes  her 
among  the  ladies  who  have  ''helped"  him. 
And  in  the  body  of  the  book,  where  he 
identifies  the  characters  of  Wuthering 
Heights  with  his  mythical  personages,  he 
prefaces  his  observations  with  these  words  : 
"Miss  Nussey  ....  believes  firmly  that 
the  girls  caught  their  inspiration  from  their 

176 


Fact  and  Fiction 

father,  and  that  Emily  got  not  only  her 
inspiration  but  most  of  her  facts  from  her 
father's  narratives."  The  effect  of  all  this 
upon  the  reader  is  the  conviction — which 
carries  immense  weight — that  Miss  Nussey 
in  some  way  helped  Dr.  Wright  with  his 
work  and  is  a  convert  to  his  theories.  In 
point  of  fact,  however,  nothing  in  this 
volume  originated  with  Miss  Nussey,  and 
she  entirely  discredits  his  stories,  ''firmly 
believing  them  to  be  mythical."^ 

In  replying  in  the  Bookman  of  December 
1896  to  critics  who  discredited  the  story 
of  Hugh's  mission  of  vengeance,  Dr. 
Wright  wrote  as  follows  : 

''  Mrs.  Heslip,  a  daughter  of  Sara  Bronte, 
Patrick's  sister,  first  cousin  to  Charlotte, 
writes  me  that  she  used  to  work  for  her 
uncle  Hugh,  and  remembers  him  coming 
to  England." 

In  a  similar  strain,  and  at  greater  length, 
he  quotes  Miss  Maggie  Shannon,  of  Bally- 

*  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  Circle,  p.  158. 
177  M 


The  Brontes 

naskeagh,  first  premising  that  she  has 
"  great  stores  of  information "  about  the 
Brontes.  After  quoting  these  two  ladies, 
he  proudly  claims  to  have  demolished  his 
critics.  The  guileless  readers  of  the  Book- 
man, of  course,  must  have  concluded  that 
these  two  relatives  believed  in  the  adven- 
ture. Which  of  them  would  guess  that 
both  entirely  discredit  it,  and  that  Mrs. 
Heslip  had  told  Dr.  Wright  to  his  face 
what  she  thought  of  his  book?^  Surely 
Dr.  Wright  himself  will  see  on  reflection 
that  a  suppression  of  this  kind  is  quite 
indefensible  ;  he  will  not  seriously  contend 
that  he  may  quote  two  witnesses  as 
favourable  when  it  is  known  that  neither 
of  thcfu  believes  a  word  of  his  story.  Yet 
this  lame  defence  is  apparently  all  he  has 
to  offer. 

And  Dr.  Wright  is  apt  to  treat  docu- 
ments as  he  treats  witnesses.  In  the 
Bookman   of   December    1896    he    quotes 

*  Sketch,  February  14,  1897. 
178 


Fact  and  Fiction 

from  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Lusk's  notes  the 
following  particulars  which  Alice  gave  con- 
cerning James*  visit  to  England:  ''Charlotte 
asked  particularly  about  the  Knock  Hill 
and  Lough  Neagh  ....  Ann  the  youngest 
wanted  to  come  home  with  Jamie.  He 
thought  it  queer  that  she  called  Ireland 
home,"  &c.  But  in  his  book  these  facts 
are  transferred  from  Jamie  to  Hugh. 
There  it  is  Hugh  whom  Charlotte  questions 
about  the  Knock  Hill ;  it  is  Hugh  whom 
Anne  proposes  to  accompany  to  Ireland, 
and  to  whom  she  speaks  of  Ireland  as 
home  (p.  291).  By  the  use  of  such 
methods  as  these  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Dr.  Wright  is  able  to  "prove  "  all  sorts  of 
things  that  never  happened. 

The  Brontes  in  Ireland  AND  THE 
Critics. 

The  other  question  which  is  likely  to  be 

aroused  in  the  minds  of  my  readers  is,  How 

179 


The  Brontes 

came  such  a  work  to  run  successfully  the 
gauntlet  of  the  press  ?  1 1  is  certainly  a 
curious  phenomenon  that  a  book  with  con- 
tradictions and  absurdities  written  large  on 
every  page  should  have  been  received 
everywhere  with  applause,  especially  when 
it  is  remembered  that  among  those  who 
reviewed  The  Brontes  in  Ireland  were 
brilliant  writers  whose  names  are  every- 
where held  in  honour."^  A  partial  expla- 
nation may  be  found  if  my  suggestion  be 
accepted  that  the  book  was  hastily  read  as 
one  might  read  a  novel.  But  it  is  an  un- 
pleasant illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
editors  perform  their  duties  if  a  work  of 
this  kind  was  assigned  to  men  of  facile  pens 
and  uncritical  minds  who  had  no  peculiar 
knowledge  of  Bronte  subjects. 

And  even  if  this  explanation  be  accepted 
it  is  not  satisfactory.     I  have  no  hesitation 

*  In  the  advertisement  of  the  third  edition  the  favour- 
able opinions  of  no  less  than  thirty-one  reviewers  are 
quoted,  and  the  praises  of  many  of  them  are  quite 
dithyrambic  in  their  fervour. 

i8o 


Fact  and  Fiction 

in  asserting  that  the  literary  merits  of 
Dr.  Wright's  book  are  but  little  superior 
to  its  historical  qualities.  I  have  already- 
quoted  a  specimen  of  the  melodramatic 
style  in  Hugh  III.'s  defiance  of  the  devil. 
Let  me  give  another  from  an  account 
of  a  pugilistic  encounter  between  Welsh 
Bronte  and  a  neighbour,  fought,  I  suppose, 
the  best  part  of  a  hundred  years  ago, 
and  of  which  Dr.  Wright  can  only  have 
received  an  oral  account:  ''A  few  awful 
moments  followed.  The  spectators  held 
their  breath  and  some  fainted,  others 
covered  their  eyes  with  their  hands  or 
averted  their  faces.  Terrific  crushing  and 
crashing  blows  resounded  all  over  the 
field,  and  when  the  blows  ceased  to  resound 
Sam  Clarke  was  lying  a  motionless  heap 
in  the  ring  ....  No  word  above  a  whisper 
had  been  heard  during  the  long  after- 
noon !  .  .  .  .  All  were  agreed  as  to  the 
closing  scene.     During  the  last  few  seconds 

the  fight  became  so  fierce  and  furious  that 

i8i 


The  Brontes 

the  blood  of  the  spectators  ran  cold. 
Nothing  like  it  for  wild  fury  and  Titanic 
ferocity  had  ever  been  witnessed  by  the 
crowd,  and  no  such  battle  has  ever 
before  or  since  been  fought  in  County 
Down."  I  can  assure  any  one  who  has 
not  read  Dr.  Wricrht's  work  that  the 
pabulum  with  which  he  presents  his  readers 
is  rich  with  such  plums  as  these.  One 
enthusiastic  critic  says,  **  There  is  a  real 
Homeric  ring  in  the  book,"  and  I  can  only 
suppose  he  is  alluding  to  the  occurrence  of 
such  strained  and  exaggerated  passages  as 
the  above.  If  this  is  Homeric,  then  Homer 
not  only  nods  but  snores. 

But  I  must  not  omit  to  call  attention  to 
our  author  in  his  softer  moments.  We 
have  also  the  popular  novelette  style.  Let 
me  select  as  an  instance  the  description 
of  Alice  McClory,  the  heroine  of  the 
apocryphal  elopement  with  Hugh  the 
Paragon  : 

*'  Her  hair,  which  hung   in  a  profusion 

182 


Fact  and  Fiction 

of  ringlets  round  her  shoulders,  was  lumi- 
nous gold ;  her  forehead  was  Parian  marble ; 
her  evenly  set  teeth  were  lustrous  pearls  ; 
and  the  roses  of  health  orlowed  on  her 
cheeks.  She  had  the  long  dark  brown 
eyelashes  that  in  Ireland  so  often  accom- 
pany golden  hair,  and  her  deep  hazel  eyes 
had  a  violet  tint  and  melting  expression," 
&c.  &c. 

Some  of  our  modern  critics  are  evidently 
much  impressed  to  find  such  purple  patches 
in  Dr.  Wright's  pages.  If  the  other  kind 
is  Homeric,  I  suppose  it  will  be  maintained 
that  this  has  Tennyson's  mother-of-pearl 
shimmer  or  is  dipped  in  the  rainbow  hues 
•of  Shelley ! 

I  must  draw  attention,  too,  to  another 
characteristic  of  the  book — the  lack  of  all 
sense  of  humour  which  it  evinces.  I  have 
already  alluded  to  one  instance  of  this — 
the  mock  heroic  speech  addressed  by  the 
villain  Welsh  to  an  infant  of  five.  An- 
other very  remarkable  specimen  occurs  in 

183 


The  Brontes 

Chapter  XV.  Dr.  Wright  first  describes 
how  the  neiofhbours  crowded  into  the  Para- 
gon's  cottage  to  get  within  hearing  of  his 
marvellous  and  fascinating  stories  ;  and 
then  occurs  the  following  :  "  Patrick,  then 
a  baby,  was  lying  on  the  heap  of  seeds 
from  which  the  fire  was  fed,  with  his  eyes 
fixed  on  his  father,  listening,  like  the  resty 
in  breathless  silence.'' 

I  should  have  imagined  the  very  first 
clause  in  the  preface  to  the  book  would 
have  damped  the  reviewer's  ardour.  It 
runs  thus  : 

**  I  trust  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  I 
disclaim  all  responsibility  for  the  Bronte 
acts,  opinions  and  sentiments  recorded  in 
this  book.  xA-s  no  one  living  could  lay 
claim  to  Bronte  genius,  even  in  its  less 
cultured  condition,  no  one  should  be  held 
responsible  for  the  eccentricities  of  that 
orenius." 

Could  anything  be  more  inane  ?  How 
could  Dr.  Wright  be  held  responsible  for 

184 


Fact  and  Fiction 

the  opinions  of  persons  long  dead,  even  if 
there  was  anything  to  be  ashamed  of  in 
those  opinions,  which  there  is  not  ?  And 
what  sanity  is  there  in  suggesting  that 
these  Irish  peasants — about  whom,  in  point 
of  fact,  very  little  is  known — had  genius 
such  as  no  living  person  can  lay  claim  to  ? 
Here  was  an  inscription  over  the  very 
threshold  of  Dr.  Wright's  work,  saying 
plainly  to  any  one  in  search  of  sense  and 
balance  :  "  Abandon  hope  all  ye  who  enter 
here."  But  the  critics  were  undeterred, 
and  their  enthusiasm  seems  to  have  waxed 
warmer  and  warmer  as  they  proceeded. 
It  would  almost  seem  as  if  a  temporary 
madness  had  befallen  the  literary  world. 

If  this  extraordinary  book  has  the  effect 
of  making  editors  more  cautious  and  critics 
more  critical,  it  will  not  have  been  written 
in  vain.  But  it  is  difficult  to  see  what 
other  object  it  can  serve.  Seeing  how 
entirely  its  stories  have  been  disproved, 
even  when    they   relate  to   comparatively 

185 


The  Brontes 

recent  times,  we  certainly  cannot  treat  any 
single  page  of  it  as  trustworthy.     True,  in 
the  last  chapter  its  author  leaves  the  re- 
cording of  myths  and  sets  about  propound- 
ing a  theory.      He  argues  that  the  famous 
Quarterly  article,  though  written  by  Lady 
Eastlake,  owed  all  its  offensiveness  to  the 
interpolations  of  Lockhart,  its  editor.     But 
this  is  as  exploded  as  the  rest  of  the  book. 
All  who  are  qualified  to  judge  are  now  con- 
vinced that  the  article  was  written  through- 
out by  Lady  Eastlake,  and  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang,  whom  Dr.  Wright  quotes  as  sharing 
his  opinion,   has  now  withdrawn  his  sup- 
port.    For  what,  then,  are  Bronte  students 
indebted  to  the  author  of  The  Brontes  in 
Ireland?     His    volume  gives  us,   indeed, 
the  trivial  and  somewhat  rambling  state- 
ments of  poor   old   Alice    Bronte,   and  a 
copy  (mutilated)  of  the  baptismal  register 
of  Patrick  Bronte's  brothers  and  sisters  ; 
but  the  former  we  owe  to  the  Rev.  J.  B. 
Lusk  and  the  latter  to  the  Rev.    H.   W. 

i86 


Fact  and  Fiction 

Lett.  If  Dr.  Wright  has  himself  given 
us  any  material  fact  about  the  Brontes 
which  was  before  unknown,  let  him  point 
it  out ;  and  I,  when  convinced,  shall  be 
duly  grateful.  But  as  to  his  theory  of  an 
Irish  origin  for  the  Bronte  novels,  there 
is  nothing  of  it  left  ;  and  the  genius  of 
Emily  Bronte  remains  as  inscrutable  as 
ever. 


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